INFORMS News: Position Statement — Anne Robinson

Anne Robinson

It is an honor to be nominated for the position of INFORMS president. As an active member and volunteer in the INFORMS community, I would appreciate the opportunity to make a greater impact by being elected president.

I believe I am well positioned for this task. INFORMS is my home. As a doctoral student, I benefited tremendously from the INFORMS community by learning from experts, discovering mentors and sharing ideas. As a practitioner, I leveraged the guidance and lessons learned from INFORMS leaders to create new analytics capabilities at Cisco, which today are recognized as core business functions.

As current INFORMS VP of Marketing, Communications and Outreach, as well as chair of various INFORMS committees over the past 10 years, I have gained a thorough understanding of the opportunities for INFORMS. Additionally, I recognize the membership dynamics from both an academic and practitioner perspective. During my tenure, my successes have included the introduction of Analytics (the INFORMS outreach magazine), the redesign of INFORMS Online, the successful CapGemini study on analytics and INFORMS, and most recently the rebranding of the spring meeting. The results of these accomplishments include increased awareness of operations research and INFORMS, new membership and greater attendance at our meetings.

INFORMS is in a time of evolution. Membership numbers have flattened, traditional print publications are becoming less relevant and our financial position is not as strong as it needs to be. At the same time, industry analysts are predicting an exponential growth in demand for analytics, best-selling books are positioning INFORMS-like talent as the secret to business success, and academic and practitioners groups are increasingly embracing analytics as a discipline.

The next INFORMS president needs to understand these dynamics and creatively and aggressively craft a role for INFORMS that will enable the organization to grow and be relevant in light of this industry transformation. As president, in close partnership with INFORMS staff and board, I would ensure that we are more strategically positioned – creating our long-term vision and expectations for the Society and profession. This will require a mix of volunteer and staff-led directions, all in the context of a broader vision. In particular, I believe our strategy needs to:

• increase and expand the diversity of our membership base;
• ensure long-term financial strength;
• align and intensify academic-industry partnerships;
• enable a robust connected information infrastructure; and
• recognize INFORMS as the leading source for thought leadership and talent.

I believe academic-industry partnerships are essential to the health of our profession.

We need a balanced ecosystem where academia effectively develops new expertise and expands our talent pipeline while industry supplies real-world input for continued innovative and relevant academic research.

During my career at Cisco, I have had the opportunity to engage in several academic-industry collaborations, give lectures at local universities and host many graduate interns in my teams. As a practitioner with strong academic ties, I understand the power and importance of academic-industry relations. As INFORMS president, I would work to strengthen and unify academics and practitioners, formalizing processes for information and data sharing, reverse mentoring and student and professional internships, as well as engaging social media tools for greater collaboration and access to thought leaders regardless of their global location.

We must embrace opportunities as they are presented to us, recognizing that we always need to keep O.R. at the core. We must be long-term focused, while balancing short-term priorities. We must also have the courage to eliminate programs and initiatives that are no longer relevant or strategically aligned.

This type of strategic positioning will allow INFORMS to increase top-level awareness of the business value of operations research and advanced analytics, while maintaining our incredible academic integrity and expertise.

I believe my commitment to INFORMS and the operations research profession, as well as my experiences and accomplishments as a volunteer and leader, make me a strong candidate for INFORMS president. The past few years have seen an increased recognition of the business value of operations research and advanced analytics. This is an exciting time for INFORMS and its membership. As a leader working with and for you, I look forward to growing INFORMS’ role in this new world and ensuring that we continue to thrive.

This is our time!

Anne Robinson is director, Connected Information, Global Business Operations, Customer Value Chain Management, Cisco. She is also vice president of Marketing, Communications and Outreach of INFORMS and serves as Cisco’s representative on the INFORMS Roundtable.