Eileen M. Rudden, Principal

 

Rudden has been a leader in the software industry for more than twenty five years.  She is an angel investor and the co-founder of Learn Launch, which is connecting, educating and growing the education innovation ecosystem in New England. She is a member of the Launchpad Venture Group.

Rudden served as Chief Officer, College and Career Preparation at Chicago Public Schools, where she led the efforts of the third largest public school system in the US to ensure that its 400,000 students are college and career ready.  A long-time advocate for improving education for all students, she was a 2009 Broad Fellow and graduate of the Broad Superintendent’s Academy.   Rudden received her MBA from Harvard Business School, and her BA from Brown University, where she served as a Trustee, and currently chairs the Advisory Committee on Computing and Information Technology.

She  serves on the boards of  KnowledgeWorks,  the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education, Ace Up and The NewTech Network.   She led the Unified Communications Division of Avaya, a Fortune 500 global business communications leader and was SVP/GM of IBM Lotus Software’s Lotus Notes and Domino.  Under her leadership more than 50 million began using the software and she was named to serve on IBM’s Technical Leadership Council.   Rudden was CEO of FairMarket (NASDAQ: FAIM), which was sold to eBay, and a manager at The Boston Consulting Group.

Rudden was Board Chair of SoundBite Communications (NASDAQ: SDBT), cloud-based customer communications,  which was sold to Genesys in July 2013.  She also served on the boards of Agilysys (NASDAQ:AGYS) , John Harland  (NYSE:JH), FairMarket (NASDAQ: FAIM)  and Lesley University.

Eileen is a wife, mother to three sons, and nana to five grandchildren. She is an avid biker, birder and naturalist. She blogs about natural history at www.wildnantucket.blogspot.com and on Medium.