FALL 2021
Alumni Awards
2020
Every year, the Business Alumni Association honors alumni and friends for their professional achievements, leadership skills, and service to the University and the Pittsburgh community at large.
Pitt Business is proud to recognize the outstanding achievements of the alumni award winners from 2020.
2020 // 55th ANNUAL BUSINESS ALUMNI ASSOCIATION AWARD WINNERS
San-e Ichii (MBA ’92)
International Distinguished Alumnus Honoree
San-e Ichii is the senior managing director and secretary general at Visual Industry Promotion Organization (VIPO) in Tokyo, Japan. As a nonprofit, VIPO supports market and human resources development to make the Japanese media industry internationally competitive. Ichii’s work plays a key role in the Japanese government’s “Cool Japan” strategy, focusing on music, film, publishing, broadcasting, and anime. Prior to his role at VIPO, Ichii served as the representative director and CEO at EMI Music Japan, Inc. His work contributed to the EMI Music Group, one of four major music companies in the world keeping the top-tier position in Japan.
Helen B. Eggers (MBA ’81)
Distinguished Alumna Honoree
Helen B. Eggers leads the business controls team and operational excellence program for Wealth Management at Bank of America. Since joining the company as a credit analyst in 1984, she has served in several senior leadership roles that focus on risk, transition, and mortgage. Eggers’ experience includes serving as president of EquiCredit Corporation, as a risk executive for global consumer and small business banking, and as a risk transition executive for the Bank of America merger with Countrywide Financial Corporation. She was also responsible for executing the strategic assistance agreement with China Construction Bank.
Gerard M. Moufflet (MBA ’69)
Distinguished Alumnus Honoree
Gerard M. Moufflet is the CEO and founder of Acceleration International Corporation, a Boston-based firm that invests in the healthcare sector in the U.S. and Europe. He is an accomplished board member and currently serves on several boards throughout the U.S. and Europe, including the University of Pittsburgh Board of Visitors. Prior to founding Acceleration International, Moufflet served as managing director at Advent International, one of the world’s leading private equity investment firms with funds under management totaling over $10 billion. He has also worked for Baxter International where he led a variety of European and African operations and worldwide strategic planning for a dialysis product line.
Robert Stewart Atkin (PhD ’96)
H. J. Zoffer Medal for Meritorious Service Honoree
Bob Atkin served as a clinical professor at Pitt Business. With more than 45 years of teaching experience, few professors have had such a profound impact on future business leaders as Atkin. By training, he is a mechanical engineer, starting his career as a process engineer at Union Carbide. He later transitioned to academia when he joined the industrial psychology graduate program at the University of Illinois. He then joined the faculty at Carnegie Mellon University, serving as associate dean and director of the MBA program before joining Pitt Business in 1986. In addition to his book, Managing in Complex Environments, Atkin has published numerous research papers, book chapters, and cases. He is also the recipient of several teaching awards, including Pitt’s Best Professor.
Lisa M. Polar (MBA ’ 98)
Distinguished Service Award Honoree
Lisa M. Polar is the human resources director at Strada Architecture, a cross-disciplinary firm that employs a human-centered approach to design, where architects, interior designers, urban designers, landscape architects, and graphic designers regularly collaborate to create places that people truly enjoy. She has more than 20 years of experience in human resources management, with in-depth knowledge of employee relations, benefits, policy and plan administration, legal compliance, analysis/reporting, talent systems, vendor relationship management, employee communications, and client service. Polar has worked for various types of employers, including a global public relations agency, an employer healthcare coalition, the trust department of a major bank, a national building materials supplier, and a metals service center.
Christopher M. Curd (BSBA ’03, MBA ’11)
CBA Undergraduate Outstanding Alumnus Honoree
Christopher M. Curd is the owner and league commissioner at the Pittsburgh Flag Football League (PFFL), where he creates new business lines of revenue to drive growth and support, maintains full integration of the marketing and sales systems, and coordinates public relations and publicity. As a former professional athlete, Curd’s football career includes time with the Atlanta Falcons (NFL), Columbus Destroyers (AFL), Albany Conquest (AF2), and Mahoning Valley Thunder. Prior to his role at the PFFL, he worked in business development for Branding Brand, where he managed more than 25 major retail accounts, including DICK’S Sporting Goods, GNC, Major League Baseball, Dollar General, and Vitamin Shoppe.
IBM
Corporate Appreciation Award Honoree
Award accepted by Wayne Balta, Vice President of Corporate Affairs and Product Safety
IBM is a leading cloud platform and cognitive solutions company. Restlessly reinventing since 1911, IBM is the largest technology and consulting employer in the world, with more than 350,000 employees serving clients in 170 countries. With Watson, the AI platform for business, powered by data, IBM builds industry-based solutions to real-world problems. For more than seven decades, IBM research has defined the future of information technology with more than 3,000 researchers in 12 labs located across six continents.