Undergrad business lecture series features Rice alum
Lecture free and open for Rice community

BY JESSICA STARK
Rice News staff

Rice University will get a lesson in management in a technology-driven world as Rice alum Jim Whitehurst ’89 offers a talk for the Undergraduate Business Minor Lecture Series at 7 p.m. Sept. 15 in McNair Hall’s Shell Auditorium, with a reception following at 8 p.m. in the Anderson Family Commons.

The event is free and open to the Rice community, but registration is required. RSVP at http://business.rice.edu/uls_sept/.

	JIM WHITEHURST

Whitehurst is president and CEO of Red Hat, the most recognized open-source technology brand in the world. Under Whitehurst’s leadership, Red Hat has built its customer base in worldwide computing. The number of open-source projects increased from 16,000 in 2001 to 150,000 in 2007, and Red Hat is the largest contributor to Linux. The company has more than 67 offices in 29 countries.

Before taking the helm at Red Hat, Whitehurst served as the Chief Operating Officer of Delta Airlines, where he was responsible for operations, marketing, corporate strategy, sales and customer service, and network and revenue management. Prior to joining Delta, Whitehurst served as vice president and director of the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and held various leadership roles in its Chicago, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Atlanta offices.

A native of Columbus, Ga., Whitehurst graduated from Rice with a bachelor’s degree in computer science and economics. He also attended Friedrich-Alexander University in Erlangen, Germany, holds a general course degree from the London School of Economics and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

The talk is part of the Rice Undergraduate Business Minor Lecture Series, which was launched, along with the business minor, in fall 2007. The minor program provides students with an opportunity to complement their major fields of study with valuable business skills in communication, accounting, finance, organizational behavior, marketing and corporate strategy. Business undergraduate courses are taught by the Jones School’s faculty and open to all Rice undergraduates.