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Summer 2004 |
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Thomas Kalinske, MBA ’68 President, Knowledge Universe Moving from Sega to LeapFrog Enterprises, Inc., he joined a two-year-old firm with a single, phonics-based interactive learning product and $11 million in sales. Over the next six years he led LeapFrog to fully realize its mission to “develop innovative, technology-based educational products and content that make learning effective and engaging,” building a family of learning platforms and over 100 interactive software titles in reading, writing, math, music, geography, social studies, spelling, and science, sold in 25 countries around the globe. LeapFrog’s 2003 sales of $680 million make it America’s 3rd largest toy company. He told video gaming executives in Los Angeles earlier this month that, “Creating software that’s both fun to play and grounded in high educational standards is good business. We urge the software giants to leverage the market potential and step up and deliver.” Knowledge Universe, parent to LeapFrog, further extends technology in learning and education, through a group of operating companies including UNext, offering online pre-MBA and MBA programs for working professionals through Cardean University, whose curriculum is developed by a consortium including Stanford, Chicago, Columbia and Carnegie Mellon Universities and the London School of Economics; and TEC Worldwide, a membership organization offering networking, learning opportunities and business services to CEOs of 8000 small and mid-sized firms worldwide. Still actively blending the professional and the public, Tom works to improve K-12 education as a director of the Milken Family Foundation, trustee of the RAND Corporation Institute on Education and Training and involvement in the local schools of his San Francisco Bay Area community. |
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Tom Kalinske says his Eller MBA, without which, “I could not have had the success I’ve been fortunate to enjoy,” taught him the language of business and how to think about business problems. His career is testimony to what the right education, combined with a drive to push the envelope and a desire to make a difference, can do. The template for Tom Kalinske’s professional and public contributions was set at Sega of America, Inc. from 1990-1996, where as president and CEO he grew the interactive entertainment firm’s share of the $4 billion U.S. market from 10% to 50% in four years then, before leaving, created the Sega Foundation to support organizations making a difference in children’s health and education. 