@Tim.Powell
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Part I - Basic Info
| First Name (required) | Tim |
| Last Name (required) | Powell |
| Nickname | Tim Powell |
| Current Hometown | New York City |
| Your Residential College | Branford |
| Other Colleges Attended | Yale School of Management (MBA, 1979); NYU Stern School (accounting); New School (psychology) |
| Web Sites | COMPANY SITE http://www.KnowledgeAgency.com
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| Your Major at Yale | Pre-Medical Sciences; Psychology and Philosophy |
| Yale Activities and Clubs | WYBC – Production Manager; FM Manager; extensive FM air work including Diversion and full-time midday show (summer of ’69) Rock bands – guitar, bass, vocals, arrangements, and repertoire Yale Repertory Theater – pit musician “Gimpel the Fool” (1970) Life Enrichment Activities Program (LEAP) – tutored low-income New Haven high school students |
Part II - Personal Updates
| Tell us about your professional life/ career | I’ve worked as a management consultant all my life, starting the summer before Yale. I worked for two large firms (KPMG and PwC) for a total of ten years, and a smaller one (Opinion Research Corporation) for six. I have run strategic research and consulting projects for more than 100 companies: Abbott Labs, Altria, American Express, Discover, GE Capital, Highmark BCBS, Sony, Traveler’s Group, the US Navy, John Wiley, and many others. I started my own practice The Knowledge Agency® in 1996. We’re an independent consulting firm focusing on helping companies manage information and knowledge for competitive advantage. I enjoy speaking about my work, and have been fortunate to be able to do that around the world. I taught at Columbia University’s Information and Knowledge Strategy graduate program for three years, and at the Palmer School of Long Island University for two. I learned as much from the students there as they learn from me. I serve as a Senior Fellow of The Conference Board’s Marketing and Communications Center. |
| Publications | BOOKS Articles and book chapters – many, mostly on helping companies and other organizations compete more effectively using information and knowledge. Record – “Copyright on Love” with Bobby Stewart, Warner Brothers Records 1982 – coauthor/arranger and guitar; charted in Billboard’s Dance Music charts. |
| Tell us about your personal life these days... | I love writing, recording, and producing music in my home studio. Mostly for fun, sometimes for profit, and sometimes to accompany videos I produce for my business. My studio was wiped out during the flooding caused by Hurricane Sandy in 2012, and I’m in the process of rebuilding it. I do a lot of digital still photography too, though strictly as an “enthusiast.” |
| Family | Ellen Matson has been my “significant other” since 1988. She’s retired from Altria. Her niece Aleysha Anderson lives in NYC, and we see her often. I have two great sons. Mike (b. 1982) is a copywriter for the Apple store. He has been published as a music and culture critic in Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, Spin, the Village Voice, the Paris Review, the New York Times Magazine, and Frieze. Mike was married in June 2014 to Annie Kurtin, who designs the student experience at the University of Arizona. They live in Tucson, and have two sons son Ellis (b. 2015) and Marlon (b. 2016). Dave (b. 1985) is a software engineer at Kensho/Standard and Poor’s in Boston, an online marketing firm. He was married in June 2015 to Megan LaFlamme, who works in sales for a health care software company. We are also close to my sister and brother-in-law, Susie and Ed Murphy, who live near where I grew up outside Philadelphia. |
| How often do you visit New Haven? | test |
| Most influential book? | After reading Management by Peter Drucker in 1975, I decided to go to business school. The then-new Yale School of Management was the only place I applied, since it integrated private and public perspectives. Drucker’s position as the most lucid thinker about management remains unchallenged in my view, and his work continues to influence and inspire my own. |
| Best Yale Course? | Biology 20 — where we studied the evolution of fish jawbones and performed electrode implant surgery on live cockroaches. Fun stuff! Also having a huge impact: Social Psych with R.P. Abelson; Anthro 20 with Sid Mintz. |
| What's been your most memorable life experience since Yale? | There have been several: (1) Having kids taught me a lot. (2) Getting divorced was a painful lesson. (3) Being close to the September 11, 2001 World Trade Center bombing was a horrifying, yet fascinating, experience. (4) Having half of our duplex Greenwich Village waterfront apartment flood during Hurricane Sandy (October 2012) was certainly a night to remember. |
| What the most memorable trip you've taken since Yale? | In June 2001, right after our 30th reunion, I lectured in Beijing to a group of government scientists and information experts. That was pre-Olympics, and to me it was like visiting another planet. Ellen and I got a chance to visit Xi’An and see the terra-cotta warriors in their original site. |
| If you could relive your Yale experience, is there anything you'd do differently? | I’d study more. I got the chance to do this when I went back to SOM in 1977. Serene campus, great for working — and totally different from what we left in 1971. Also, I’d keep in touch with classmates more consistently. Getting involved with managing this web site has helped me to do so. |