Ed Granger-Happ
CIO-in-Residence
Ed Granger-Happ, chief information officer of Save the Children, a high-profile global charity, spent the spring 2008 term at the Tuck School as the Center for Digital Strategies' first CIO-in-residence. The center conducts research, hosts industry and academic events, and roundtables for CIOs and their corporate colleagues.
A tall, friendly man with a powerful laugh, Granger-Happ made many friends and worked on a range of projects during his sabbatical at the center.
Granger-Happ, who also co-founded NetHope (a nonprofit IT consortium of international NGOs, serving tens of millions of beneficiaries in more than 180 countries), worked with students and professors on projects relating to technology and nonprofit organizations. He also fielded calls and requests for information relating to two major disasters—a devastating cyclone in Myanmar and a major earthquake in China.
"Ed's work with NetHope was so visionary, we wrote a case on NetHope that I used in my MBA class at Tuck," said Professor Eric Johnson, director of the Center for Digital Strategies.
Granger-Happ became acquainted with CDS when he participated in the 2004 CIO Roundtable on Global Processes. He and Johnson then worked together on a supply chain project at Save The Children, examining what types of information technology could most effectively enable their humanitarian efforts.
After visiting Johnson's class, Granger-Happ said he asked Save the Children to grant him a sabbatical. "I wanted the opportunity to have a concentrated period of time to work with students, write, and take classes at Tuck," he said. "I've thoroughly enjoyed being up here."
In his role as a mentor, Granger-Happ said he appreciated being able to "nurture the world's future business leaders." While at the center, he worked with two second-year Tuck students, Nick Richardson and Joel Obillo, on a research project titled "Disruptive Innovation for Nonprofits." The students explored how nonprofit organizations can be disrupted by new technologies if they are not able to embrace and adopt them in a positive manner.
"At school, you often get good theory, but working with Ed helped us see how things happen on the ground," said Richardson, who plans to work at a nonprofit organization after graduation.
Granger-Happ also worked with another team of Tuck students to write and distribute a technology survey sent to 34 local nonprofits. The survey gathered information about how the organizations used technology and their reliance on outside tech consultants. Results will be shared with all the organizations participating in the study, said Granger-Happ. He also spoke to a group of local leaders of nonprofit organizations.
"I've been immersed in the college as well as the community," he said.
In addition to his demanding job as Save the Children's CIO, Granger-Happ is at work on two book projects. He's contributing the final chapter to a collaborative book about technology for nonprofits and is also writing a book about storytelling as a means of communicating business history and management tools.
The storytelling book was inspired by two others: Rainer Maria Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet and peace activist and minister William Sloane Coffin's Letters to a Young Doubter. So far, Granger-Happ said he has collected 240 stories to pull from for his own book.
When he wasn't busy teaching, doing research, or auditing Tuck classes, Granger-Happ spent his free time hiking around New Hampshire and Vermont. He also enjoyed walking to and from campus from his temporary home in Hanover.
Being away from the office had other benefits. While he was fully engaged in academic life at Tuck, he said his IT team back in Westport, Conn., had to learn how to work without his direct supervision. Since it was impossible to micromanage his team from a distance, he forced himself to let go. This process, he said, will change his management style when he returns to work.
"I think one of the real opportunities was to push delegation of my CIO duties to a new level," said Granger-Happ. "When I go back to work, my desire is not to step back into the old role, but create a new role for myself."
"Ed has contributed so much to the students and CDS this spring," Johnson said. "Besides the student projects, he has participated in classes and conferences—and many thought-provoking conversations over coffee or beers."
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