W.L. Mellon Speaker Series

Maestro Manfred Honeck
Music Director, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra

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Manfred Honeck has firmly established himself as one of the world’s leading conductors, whose distinctive and revelatory interpretations receive great international acclaim. As Music Director of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, where his contract runs through the 2027-2028 season, he has entered his 18th season. Celebrated at home and abroad, he and the orchestra continue to serve as cultural ambassadors for the city of Pittsburgh. Guest appearances include Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center in New York, as well as the major venues of Europe and leading festivals such as the BBC Proms, Salzburg Festival, Musikfest Berlin, Lucerne Festival, Rheingau Music Festival, Beethovenfest Bonn, and Grafenegg Festival. In summer 2024, he led the Pittsburgh Symphony in a nine-city European Festivals Tour, starting with their appearance as the only American orchestra at the prestigious Salzburg Festival and concluding at Vienna Konzerthaus.

Manfred Honeck's successful work in Pittsburgh is being extensively documented by recordings on the Reference Recordings label, featuring works by Beethoven, Brahms, Bruckner, Shostakovich, Strauss, Tchaikovsky, and others. They have received a multitude of outstanding reviews and awards, including many GRAMMY® nominations, and he and the orchestra won the GRAMMY® for "Best Orchestral Performance" in 2018. The most recent recording, Requiem: Mozart’s Death in Words and Music, was released in August 2025 to great critical acclaim.

Born in Austria, Manfred Honeck completed his musical training at the University of Music in Vienna. His many years of experience as a member of the viola section in the Vienna Philharmonic and Vienna State Opera Orchestra have had a lasting influence on his work as a conductor, and his art of interpretation is based on his determination to venture deep beneath the surface of the music. He began his conducting career as assistant to Claudio Abbado and as director of the Vienna Jeunesse Orchestra. Subsequently, he was engaged by the Zurich Opera House, where he was awarded the European Conducting Prize in 1993. He has since served as one of three principal conductors of the MDR Symphony Orchestra Leipzig, as Music Director of the Norwegian National Opera, Principal Guest Conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra and Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, and Chief Conductor of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra in Stockholm. In November 2023, he was appointed Honorary Conductor by the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, following decades of close collaboration.

Manfred Honeck also has a strong profile as opera conductor. In his four seasons as General Music Director of the Staatsoper Stuttgart, he conducted premieres of operas by Berlioz, Mozart, Poulenc, Strauss, Verdi, and Wagner. He has also appeared as guest at leading houses such as Semperoper Dresden, Komische Oper Berlin, Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels, Royal Opera of Copenhagen, and the Salzburg Festival. In 2020, Beethoven’s anniversary year, he conducted a new staging of Fidelio (1806 version) at the Theater an der Wien. In autumn 2022, he made his much-acclaimed debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, leading a revival of Mozart’s Idomeneo. Beyond the podium, Manfred Honeck has designed a series of symphonic suites, including Janáček’s Jenůfa, Strauss’s Elektra, Dvořák’s Rusalka as well as Puccini's Turandot which he regularly performs around the globe.

As a guest conductor, Manfred Honeck has worked with all leading international orchestras, including Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Staatskapelle Dresden, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Accademia di Santa Cecilia Rome and the Vienna Philharmonic. In the United States, he has conducted all major US orchestras, including New York Philharmonic, The Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra and San Francisco Symphony. He has also been Artistic Director of the International Concerts Wolfegg in Germany for thirty years.

Manfred Honeck holds honorary doctorates from several universities in the United States and was awarded the honorary title of Professor by the Austrian Federal President. In 2018, the jury of the International Classical Music Awards declared him "Artist of the Year.”

President, CEO & Director of Lancaster Colony Corporation,
President of T. Marzetti Company

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A prominent C-suite executive, David Ciesinski (MSIA ’96) is a forward-thinking leader who measures his success by more than just the bottom line.

“If you're a leader you work at the nexus of two really important things,” he explained. “One is to focus on accomplishing a mission (and that's easy), but the other – and I think this distinguishes leaders from managers – is a moral obligation to uphold the dignity of every single employee.”

Ciesinski has advanced through a distinguished career from Bronze Star Army First Lieutenant to leader at H.J. Heinz and Kraft, culminating in his current role as president, CEO, and director of Lancaster Colony Corporation and president of wholly-owned subsidiary T. Marzetti. A $2B manufacturer and marketer of specialty food products for retail and food service, Lancaster Colony operates 13 production facilities in seven states and employs 3,400 people. While at the helm, Ciesinski nearly doubled the size of the organization.

Recently, he shared his leadership insights with the Carnegie Mellon University community as part of the Tepper School’s W.L. Mellon Speaker Series. After a welcome by undergraduate business student Emma Shirzad and opening remarks from Dean Isabelle Bajeux-Besnainou, an inspiring discussion was moderated by Blake Rodenberger (MBA ’25), president of the Tepper School Veterans Association.

Early in the conversation, Ciesinski stressed the importance of fostering employee growth, both for individual as well as organizational benefit.

“If you really want to accomplish anything great you need to remember first and foremost that you're in the people business and it's about those relationships,” he said. “I fundamentally believe if you want to help a business grow you have to help the people in that business grow as well. When you engage their hearts and minds and do it authentically, it just unlocks magic.”

This attitude extends beyond the individual to the group, toward creating a positive and healthy company culture and monitoring effective team dynamics. Ciesinski underscored that organizational culture begins with the leader and should be built on trust, transparency, and honesty.

“What kind of culture do you want to create for the people that work around you?” he challenged the audience. “If you have trust and honesty then I think you can create collaboration and achieve performance – and that performance will drive results.”

He went on to describe foundational qualities of the employees that fit best into the values he’s fostered – respect, the courage to speak one’s mind, humility, and the inner desire to better oneself. Humility, he pointed out, is a key to growth. “If you don’t have humility, I’m not sure you can be truly open-minded and therefore learn and grow.”

Importantly, he extends this emphasis on personal dignity and growth to one of the most difficult professional situations. “If you're really committed to helping somebody grow it may mean saying, ‘Hey, I want to help you grow here but you have talents and gifts that just aren't a perfect fit with what we’re doing,’ and being willing to have that conversation with them courageously.”

Ciesinski then described a crisis that tested everyone to their limits. In 2019, the company was hacked with malware that “locked us out completely.” True to form, he relied on teamwork, from impromptu triage with leadership to company-wide meetings which he held from atop a table – the model of transparency and humility. It took six months of hard work, but they recovered. And in a quirk of fate, by 2020 they were in-the-cloud and working in a more distributed way – and consequently well-prepared for the impending COVID lockdowns.

Ciesinski also spent time highlighting Lancaster Colony’s emphasis on resiliency and succession planning, as well as their recent innovations, focused “less at this point on AI and more on improving manufacturing systems.” They continuously examine enterprise risk and redundancies, including systems, manufacturing, and increasingly supply. “It's a vital part of what you need to do running a business,” he observed. “We live in a complicated world.”

Ciesinski himself remains focused on the future, including that of his team. “You’re always going to ask yourself what sort of machine capacity do we have, can we keep up with demand, etc…but it's equally if not more important that you look within your team and ask, ‘Do we have the right capacity and capability to meet the evolving needs of the business?’”

In closing, Dean Bajeux thanked Ciesinski for sharing his wisdom, presenting him with a plaque of appreciation as the audience applauded in agreement.

Beginning in 2006, the W.L. Mellon Speaker Series has provided an opportunity for students to interact with global leaders, CEOs, and management experts. As part of this visit, Ciesinski also met with faculty, administrators and a small group of undergraduate and graduate students to offer his industry insights and career guidance.

CEO, Co-Founder and Co-Chairman, Wayfair

Wayfair CEO, Niraj Shah on His Entrepreneurial Journey

Niraj Shah is a leader who personifies entrepreneurial spirit and savvy. As co-founder, CEO and Co-Chairman of Wayfair, one of the world’s largest e-commerce home goods retailers, he has piloted the company through decades of incredible growth and innovation. Shah recently shared insights gained on his rise to entrepreneurial success as part of the W. L. Mellon Speaker Series.

During the fireside chat moderated by Professor Dave Mawhinney, Shah described founding his first venture fresh out of college, launching an IT consulting business with dorm hallmate Steve Conine during the early days of the internet. Two companies later, the partners were exploring their next endeavor. After the dot com crash of 2000, headlines were declaring the failure of e-commerce. Shah and Conine, however, noticed the many profitable e-commerce companies for sale, and set about targeting an opportune niche selling TV and speaker stands.

Now, with deep experience as an entrepreneur including a startup turned global company, Shah’s advice for would-be entrepreneurs is straightforward. “There are always different challenges,” he observed. “Even when things are going incredibly well, you can’t get complacent because you know sure enough your competitors are out there working on great new ideas.”

His take on handling that competition, however, is balanced. “Watch everyone out there, including countries you don't operate in because maybe they're doing something novel,” he advised, “but don't obsess over your competition as much as your customer. It may or may not be worth doing something just because your competitor's doing it. If, however, there’s something that's your customers’ number one pain point, that is really important to fix."

In discussing how technological innovation has been part of his path, Shah noted that he and Conine come from engineering backgrounds and had a first venture building internet applications. They started Wayfair by building their own custom systems to manage their growing offerings and developing one of the first filtered searches to make a large catalog navigable. Subsequent innovations included generating imagery and pricing of non-branded items. “We feel like we get significant benefits in the fact that we’re rooted in building technology, not simply in using technology that others build,” Shah said.

Moreover, the co-founders have been able to utilize AI to their benefit in providing suppliers with demand forecasts based on catalog dynamics to better manage inventory, supply chain forecasting, and complicated delivery logistics. The technology is used to optimize over speed, cost, quality, and damage rates. Looking ahead, Shah noted that he “sees opportunity” in the generative aspect of AI to develop more immersive visual shopping experiences, focusing company R&D in that direction.

Shah sees future growth for the company coming from its unique category and competitive advantage through technology. “We can be the home specialist – and becoming vertically integrated while powered with proprietary technology we can provide that experience to customers in a way that others just are not in a position to.”

As students think about their leadership journeys and how technology intertwines, he noted “I don't think it requires you to necessarily know how to build the technology – but I do think it requires you to understand how to leverage and use the technology. Having some degree of understanding how technology works and then how it can play and be part of the creative process in solving problems is really useful.”

In addition to this fireside chat, Shah’s day on campus was rounded out with meeting faculty and researchers from across campus, participating in a roundtable discussion with students, and mentoring startups.

CEO of the Allegheny County Airport Authority (ACAA)

Christina Cassotis was born to be in aviation. The New Hampshire native recalls her Pan Am pilot father jetting everywhere from Dakar to Rio, thinking “he had the greatest job in the world.”

Years later, as CEO of the Allegheny County Airport Authority (ACAA), Cassotis has led the transformation of Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT) into a leading global facility, recruiting multiple new domestic and international carriers, adding numerous routes, and directing the creation of PIT’s microgrid, making it the first global airport entirely independent from the traditional power grid. She’s currently spearheading the billion-dollar construction of PIT’s new, smart terminal, scheduled to open in early 2025.

Cassotis recently shared her experiences and insights with the Carnegie Mellon University community as part of the Tepper School’s W.L. Mellon Speaker Series.

The hour was opened by MBA student Stephanie Ho and Jim Jen, Distinguished Service Professor of Entrepreneurship and Director of the Carnegie Mellon Corporate Startup Lab. Dean Isabelle Bajeux-Besnainou moderated the dynamic conversation.

Cassotis described stints as a bartender and consultant, developing skills she relies on today. “You have to understand people,” she explained. “Bartending, you take care of lots of different people with lots of different issues, at the same time – actually perfect for consulting. Those experiences have served me well in this position, which is filled with numerous partners with very different agendas. You’ve got to be able to lean into your relationships and your skills at finding something in common that you can build from.”

“This new terminal is going to be spectacular. I promise,” Cassotis said with a smile.

Those leadership skills helped her successfully steer her organization through the pandemic. “We huddled in a conference room for eight hours and put forth every single policy that would drive us through,” she recalled. “My senior leadership team is very used to making decisions quickly – with imperfect information.” Among other things, they split teams for administrative functions, opened empty parking lots for food drives, and housed 100 planes from partner airlines on the center runway to both aid the community and industry while remaining sustainable during the turmoil.

“I believe in aviation,” she declared. “I’ve seen the shocks after 9/11, after the recession, after the Gulf War. I know that aviation always comes back, and I knew we had a really important job to do. We had to keep the airport open.”

Cassotis described the continuing challenges of her key role attracting additional airline service. “We are always looking at opportunities around the world for expanded air service, both cargo and passenger,” she said. “For airlines to open up a new market, we have to sell, sell, sell – and we don't sell the airport. We talk about the market.” Robotics and the innovation taking place in Pittsburgh have served as a draw.

The pandemic underscored the importance of diversification, “If there's another extra external shock, we need a revenue source that is different from our primary purpose of business.” To this end, at PIT, “No one carrier dominates. We have every single domestic airline except two.” The ACAA is also exploring land use and investing in the production of sustainable aviation fuel on site to further strengthen their business model.

Cassotis elaborated on the ultimate decision – undertaken with PIT’s airline partners – to construct a new facility, citing costly issues including an un-expandable TSA checkpoint, eight miles of bag belt, and difficulty retrofitting technology through concrete. “Thirty years is a good useful life for a building,” she said. “Either you reinvest or look at an alternative.”

She takes a broad view of the “smart” airport. “Many people think ‘smart’ means the technology you’re putting in,” she explained. “To me, smart means it works for everyone. It’s adaptable. If nobody’s at the counter when you have a question, you're looking for people. We have to make sure that technology is an enabler and not a substitute.”

With a people focus at the core of her leadership style, it’s not surprising that she views sustainability broadly - encompassing environmental, workforce, and financial sustainability. The new terminal, among many things, will be LEED gold certified, and existing ramp concrete is being re-purposed as a new roadway base layer. Moreover, the ACAA has built a workforce development program using the construction site for training, created on-site childcare, and worked for additional public transit to the airport.

Chairman, The PNC Financial Group

William "Bill" Demchak is in his element in rapidly-changing environments punctuated by periods of crisis. As chairman, President and CEO of The PNC Financial Services Group, one of the largest diversified financial services companies in the U.S, he has seen his share.

As part of the W.L. Mellon Speaker Series at the Tepper School of Business, Demchak recently imparted wisdom and candid insight gained through his career.

The event - which kicked off the 2023-24 season - was opened by Dean Isabelle Bajeux-Besnainou and Param Vir Singh, Carnegie Bosch Professor of Technologies and Marketing, Director of the PNC Center for Financial Services Innovation. Anita Williams Woolley, Associate Dean, Research and Professor of Organizational Behavior and Theory, served as moderator.

“If you don’t want crisis, don’t go into banking,” Demchak quipped with a laugh as the discussion began. “Maybe it’s a bit of my personality, but there’s nothing like a good crisis to wake you up and get you focused on opportunities.”

In that vein, Demchak sees the financial services industry undergoing further consolidation, favoring the largest, strongest institutions. “There are big, big benefits to scale,” he observed. “I think there will be eight-to-10 large, coast-to-coast, multifaceted institutions and a lot of small community banks.”

He described how changes in technology have impacted both retail and corporate clients’ interaction with an organization. Digital products, for example, now enable greater self-service for retail customers.

He additionally noted that maintaining both sides of the institution is crucial. “Corporate and retail banking are symbiotic,” he said. “The corporate business is more relational but as table stakes you need the retail business to fund it and effectively allow us to fund the economy.”

Not surprisingly, the theme of change turned to the potentially disruptive effects of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Demchak sees things differently. “It’s a lot more buzz than it is real in my view,” he remarked. “Maybe AI will be that ‘thing,’ but it doesn’t feel structural to me. It feels like a next step in the evolution of the way we’re going to use technology.”

Demchak commented on his own career path within the ever-changing finance industry, particularly highlighting the importance of being open to varied experiences. “I’d recommend it over and over and over again,” he said. “I think it’s exceptionally rare that you land in the right spot. Jump around and you’ll run into paths in your career you didn’t even know were there, learn something different, meet new people.”

And true to form he added, “Particularly in times of crisis, when something’s busted, dive at it. Stability isn’t your friend in your career, craziness is. I honestly believe that.”

It's a philosophy that he not only holds today, but has always lived. He arrived on Wall Street just as quantitative finance was taking hold. “There was a never-ending stream of new things to figure out and I would chase those, and just keep trading sideways,” he recalled. “People thought I was absolutely nuts.”

He likened his current role at the helm of PNC to that of an orchestra conductor, describing his 24/7 responsibilities. “It’s kind of hard to execute but very simple to describe – I need to pick people and choose strategy. It’s all I have to do. I have very good leaders who run our businesses.”

Demchak stressed the importance of choosing his team from a diverse pool, “Not just in ethnicity and gender and nationality, but the way they think.” He’s proud of his ability to find and appreciate individuals’ unique talents and employ those skills most productively.  “It makes life interesting to find different types of people who, together, can do great things.”

Janet Foutty: Executive Chair of the Board, Deloitte US
Laurie Weingart: Professor of Organizational Behavior and Theory, Tepper School

The women presented on April 11, 2023 as part of the speaker series. Mia Pareek (MBA 2012), Deloitte Consulting LLP, moderated.

Janet Foutty, Executive Chair of the Board, Deloitte US

Janet Foutty is Executive Chair of the board of Deloitte US. Janet is also a member of Deloitte’s Global Board of Directors and chair of the Deloitte Foundation. She formerly served as CEO of Deloitte Consulting.

While CEO she led the digital transformation and growth of the $10B business through significant investments in digital, artificial intelligence, and cloud. Janet previously led Deloitte’s Federal and Technology businesses, which grew exponentially through organic growth, acquisitions, and the launch of numerous businesses including Deloitte Digital.

Janet is a passionate advocate for DEI; women in technology; and the need for STEM education. She founded women in technology groups in India and the US. Janet has steered Deloitte’s DEI efforts and is committed to purposeful leadership and recognizes that business can and should make a broader societal impact that matters. Janet also serves on a number of not-for-profit boards.

Janet is a co-author of the bestselling book "Arrive and Thrive: 7 Impactful Practices for Women Navigating Leadership."

Laurie Weingart, Richard M. and Margaret S. Cyert Professor of Organizational Behavior and Theory, Tepper School

Laurie Weingart is the Richard M. and Margaret S. Cyert Professor of Organizational Behavior and Theory at the Tepper School of Business. She is Vice Chair of CMU’s Faculty Senate and co-leads the Collaboration and Conflict Research Lab. She formerly served as CMU’s Interim Provost and as a Senior Associate Dean within the Tepper School.

Coauthor of "The No Club: Putting a Stop to Women’s Dead-End Work," her research and teaching examines collaboration, conflict, and negotiation, with a focus on how differences across people both help and hinder effective problem-solving and innovation. Professor Weingart has published over 70 articles and book chapters in the fields of management, psychology, and economics.

An elected Fellow of the Academy of Management and recipient of the Joseph E. McGrath Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Study of Groups, Weingart served as President of the International Association for Conflict Management, founding President of the Interdisciplinary Network for Group Research, and as editor of the Academy of Management Annals.

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MBA 2000
Chief Financial Officer, Genentech

Ed Harrington (MBA 2000), Chief Financial Officer at Genentech, presented at the Tepper School on Oct. 5. Sponsored by the Healthcare Club, Tepper professor and former dean Robert Dammon moderated this in-person talk.

Ed Harrington is Genentech’s chief financial officer. He assumed this role in January 2016. Ed leads the Genentech and Pharma North America Finance organizations as well as the Genentech Site Services function. He is a member of the Genentech Executive Committee and the Global Pharma Finance Leadership Team.

Ed joined Roche in 2001 as finance director, U.S. Consumer Health in Nutley, New Jersey. Following this role, he was finance director, US Pharma Alliances, General and Administrative, Tech Services, IT in New Jersey from 2003-2006. Ed moved to Switzerland in 2006 as global head of Pharma Strategic Alliances and R&D Portfolio Controlling through 2009. He then joined Roche Canada as vice president and chief financial officer from 2010-2012.

In 2013, Ed moved to Roche China where he was vice president, Finance. In this role, he was responsible for Finance, Procurement, and Business Development. Prior to joining Roche, Ed held both finance and accounting positions in companies including J. P. Morgan and Ernst & Young.

Ed received his bachelor’s degree in accounting from Robert Morris University and an MBA in finance and international business management from Carnegie Mellon University.

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