Bob Irwin, president and CEO of Sterling Commerce, provides his formula for successful leadership to students during the Sander A. Flaum Leadership Speaker Series on April 23. Irwin, who received his bachelor’s degree from Fisher, stressed the importance of clear and simple communications skills as a fundamental trait in successful leaders.

Fisher College of Business has become the first academic institution to publish Lean Six Sigma Belt certification standards and will make them available to companies and Lean Six Sigma practitioners. The standards were developed by the Center for Operational Excellence (COE).

Lean Six Sigma, an enduring and accepted process improvement methodology, still has no globally accepted standard of belt certification. However, in the past year, Fisher’s COE has worked with a council of academic faculty, industry leaders and member companies to develop a common, robust, objective and accessible operational definition for "what is a Lean Six Sigma Belt."

This rigorous, third-party standard, which reflects the most common scope of industry expectations, is now available for public use, with the goal of bringing greater uniformity and value to the Black Belt and Green Belt certification process.

“We have developed and will maintain a standard of certification that reflects both practice and theory,” said Peg Pennington, executive director for COE. “This is a certification standard that any company could use in their own development process.”

The Center for Operational Excellence does not provide certifications, only a published standard. The standard is available on the COE web site.

Fisher's Big Ten Case Competition team prepares their presentation for judges. Click the arrow above for video highlights of the competition.

Gail Geshwilm Dickson (right), director of marketing and communications for Fisher, accepts the 2010 PRism Award from Central Ohio Public Relations Society of America president Jaron Terry (left) at the April 22 ceremony at the Polaris Hilton. Fisher's 2009 Annual Report received top honors from the professional society.

Title: "I call myself a video producer, but my official title is Instructional Development Specialist."

Hobbies:"I’ve been playing drums for 27 years and for the last 16 with the band, American Nude Music. I’m also involved with a non-profit organization called Isha Foundation, which conducts yoga programs and social outreach projects. I’ve participated in programs at our center in India, here in Columbus and in Tennessee. Most recently, I’ve gotten into cycling in a big way. I compete in road races, dabbled a little bit in multisport and cyclocross, a 30-60 minute bike race over multiple surfaces (grass, sand, mud etc). It’s a blast."

Fisher Lure: "I like the staff culture here, especially the very open communication in our EdTech group. Everybody knows what everybody else is doing and I find that helps me to understand the larger mission of the group. Attention to detail and respect for the client are high and the quality of our work is good."