Chairman of the Board

Nicholas M. Donofrio is a 44-year IBM veteran who was IBM's Executive Vice President of Innovation and Technology from 1997 until his retirement in October 2008. He also was vice chairman of the IBM International Foundation and chairman of the Board of Governors for the IBM Academy of Technology. Mr. Donofrio's most recent responsibilities included IBM Research, Governmental Programs, Technical Support & Quality, Corporate Community Relations, as well as Environmental Health & Product Safety. Also reporting to Mr. Donofrio were the senior executives responsible for IBM's enterprise on demand transformation. In addition to that strategic business mission, Mr. Donofrio led the development and retention of IBM's technical population and enriched that community with a diversity of culture and thought. In 2008 IBM Chairman Sam Palmisano elected Nick IBM Fellow, the company's highest technical honor.
 
Mr. Donofrio joined IBM as a college co-op student in 1964 and worked on the memory technology for the legendary IBM System/360 mainframe computing system. After being hired full time at IBM in 1967, he spent the early part of his career in integrated circuit and chip development as a designer of logic and memory chips. He held numerous technical management positions and, later, executive positions in several of IBM's product divisions. He has led many of IBM's major development and manufacturing teams - from semiconductor and storage technologies, to microprocessors and personal computers, to IBM's entire family of servers.
 
He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1967 and a Master of Science in the same discipline from Syracuse University in 1971. In 1999 he was awarded an honorary doctorate in Engineering from Polytechnic University, in 2002 he received an honorary doctorate in Sciences from the University of Warwick in England, in 2005 he was awarded an honorary doctorate in Technology from Marist College and in 2006 he received an honorary doctorate in Sciences from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. Pace University awarded him an honorary doctorate in Sciences in 2009 as did University of Ireland, Maynooth in 2010 and Syracuse University in 2011.  
 
Mr. Donofrio is focused sharply on advancing education, employment and career opportunities for underrepresented minorities and women. He served for many years on the Board of Directors for the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering (NACME) and was NACME's Board chair from 1997 through 2002. He also served for several years on the Board of Directors for INROADS, a non-profit organization focused on the training and development of talented minority youth for professional careers in business and industry. He serves as Chairman Emeritus and a current board member of  the New York Hall of Science.

In 2003-2004, Mr. Donofrio chaired the work effort for the US Council on Competitiveness (CoC) that led to the National Innovation Initiative (NII) ( Innovate America™: Thriving in a World of Challenge and Change).As per the CoC website ... 'This landmark publication provides an in-depth examination of the role innovation plays in U.S. competitiveness and lays out a concrete roadmap of recommendations for the future, organized into three broad categories: talent, investment and infrastructure. With more than 300,000 downloads and counting, Innovate America remains relevant, continuing to shape the national, regional and international dialogue on the role innovation will play in driving competitiveness in the 21st century.'  
 
In 2005, Mr. Donofrio was appointed by the U.S. Department of Education to serve on the Commission on the Future of Higher Education, a 20-member delegation of business and university leaders charged with developing a new national strategy for post-secondary education that will meet the needs of Americas diverse population and also address the economic and workforce needs of the country's future.
 
He is the holder of seven technology patents and is a member of numerous technical and science honor societies.  Among them, he is a Fellow of the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers, a Fellow of the U.K-based Royal Academy of Engineering, a member of the US-based National Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.   Mr. Donofrio serves as a member of the Board of Directors for the Bank of New York/Mellon, Liberty Mutual, AMD, Delphi Automotive, Sproxil and O'Brien & Gere.  He additionally serves as a member of the Board of Trustees for The MITRE Corporation and Syracuse University and is Chairman of the Board of Regents for Higher Education in the State of CT.