The initial role and purpose of the Center for Advancing Corporate Performance was (and still is) to build research ‘bridges’ between faculty interested in economics/finance and others interested in organization/management, as well as practitioners interested in better understanding of the relationship between top management, organizational structure, and corporate governance policies and their impact on corporate financial performance. This understanding is valuable to academics training the next generation of managers, as well as to current senior executives and directors charged with making better strategic decisions for their firms.
With this engagement model, the types of issues and projects that will be undertaken by the CACP are ‘top-management’ level and ‘business-wide’ rather than functional which, in turn, requires the development of linkages between faculty and practitioners. These relationships are established through the Executive Advisory Board (EAB) which currently includes senior executives, corporate directors, and advisors/consultants to top-management, as well as academics with relevant expertise. The membership of the EAB operates both as a group offering guidance on topics of interest to practitioners, and as individuals engaged in research efforts that are both academically rigorous and useful to top-management. They also help the CACP engage in outreach activities aimed at the wider practitioner community, as well as help to disseminate research results to practitioners who can use them; written in language that communicates to them.
CACP Co-Founders
The Center for Advancing Corporate Performance was co-founded in 2015 by Joel Goldhar and Mitchell Saranow.
Joel Goldhar
CACP’s Founding Director is Professor of Operations and Technology Management Joel Goldhar at Illinois Tech's Stuart School of Business and is former Dean of Stuart. His primary research interests are in the areas of strategic management and design of service operations. He earned a D.B.A. from George Washington University and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.
Mitchell Saranow
Mitchell Saranow is Chairman of The Saranow Group and Founding Chairman of Illinois Tech’s CACP. He serves as an Illinois Tech Trustee, and has provided the seed capital, along with Illinois Tech’s Stuart School of Business, needed to start CACP. He holds an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and a Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School. Saranow has served on the Board of Directors of five public companies, and is currently Emeritus Director of Telephone and Data Systems, Inc.