Jonathan Rotenberg (born April 29, 1963) is an executive coach, management consultant, and author. In 1977, he cofounded The

Boston Computer Society The Boston Computer Society (BCS) was an organization of personal computer users, based in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S., that ran from 1977 to 1996. At one point, it was the largest such group in the world, with regular user group meetings, many pub ...

, which became the world's largest

personal computer A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or tec ...

user organization. He is currently writing a book about what he learned from his early mentor, Apple founder

Steve Jobs Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American entrepreneur, industrial designer, media proprietor, and investor. He was the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple; the chairman and majority shareholder of Pixar; a ...

.The Double Life of Jonathan Rotenberg
Boston Globe, March 29, 1995. p.63

Early life

Jonathan was born in Boston, MA. He is a graduate of

Commonwealth School Commonwealth School is a private high school of about 155 students and 35 faculty members located in the Back Bay neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It is accredited by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges. Hist ...

, an independent high school in Boston's Back Bay. As a 13-year-old freshman, he cofounded The

in the school's library.

Education

Rotenberg has an A.B. in Economics from

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

; an MBA from

Harvard Business School Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate business school of Harvard University, a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. It is consistently ranked among the top business schools in the world and offers a large full-time MBA p ...

; and a Graduate Certificate in

Executive Coaching Executive ( exe., exec., execu.) may refer to: Role or title * Executive, a senior management role in an organization ** Chief executive officer (CEO), one of the highest-ranking corporate officers (executives) or administrators ** Executive dire ...

from the

Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology William James College, formerly Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology (MSPP), is a private college of psychology in Newton, Massachusetts. With more than 750 students, William James College offers graduate academic degree and certifica ...

Career

The Boston Computer Society

Rotenberg cofounded an organization to demystify personal computers called The

, popularly known as the BCS. He was its president from 1977 to 1990. During that period, the Society became the leading international forum where personal computer companies unveiled groundbreaking new products and technologies to the public. For example, in 1979

Dan Bricklin Daniel Singer Bricklin (born July 16, 1951) is an American businessman and engineer who is the co-creator, with Bob Frankston, of the VisiCalc spreadsheet program. He also founded Software Garden, Inc., of which he is currently president, and Trel ...

and Bob Frankston introduced the first spreadsheet program, VisiCalc. In 1984,

and

Steve Wozniak Stephen Gary Wozniak (; born August 11, 1950), also known by his nickname "Woz", is an American electronics engineer, computer programmer, philanthropist, inventor, and technology entrepreneur. In 1976, with business partner Steve Jobs, he c ...

made the first public presentation of the Macintosh at the BCS.

Mitch Kapor Mitchell David Kapor ( ; born November 1, 1950) is an American entrepreneur best known for his work as an application developer in the early days of the personal computer software industry, later founding Lotus, where he was instrumental in deve ...

introduced Lotus 1-2-3. Dozens of industry leaders — from

Bill Gates William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American business magnate and philanthropist. He is a co-founder of Microsoft, along with his late childhood friend Paul Allen. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions ...

to Michael Dell, Nolan Bushnell to Esther Dyson, Ray Kurzweil to Sherry Turkle, Seymour Papert to

— came each month to connect with BCS members. The Society developed more than a hundred user and special-interest subgroups, many of which became the largest of their kind in the world. It published over 20 publications and sponsored nearly a hundred educational programs each month. Before his twenty-first birthday, Rotenberg had been profiled in

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

(front page),

PEOPLE A person (plural, : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of pr ...

InfoWorld ''InfoWorld'' (abbreviated IW) is an information technology media business. Founded in 1978, it began as a monthly magazine. In 2007, it transitioned to a web-only publication. Its parent company today is International Data Group, and its siste ...

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

, BusinessWeek,

The Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...

and

TIME Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...

magazine, and on CBS Evening News. In 1990, Jonathan moved from president of the BCS to become its chairman.

Management Consulting

Jonathan began his career in

management consulting Management consulting is the practice of providing consulting services to organizations to improve their performance or in any way to assist in achieving organizational objectives. Organizations may draw upon the services of management consultant ...

at a Cambridge, Massachusetts consulting firm, Monitor Group, which was founded in 1983 by six entrepreneurs with Harvard Business School ties. He was with Monitor from 1991 to 1999. Jonathan became a strategy consultant with internet consulting firm

Viant Viant Inc. was a multi-national Internet consulting firm, founded in San Francisco in April 1996, that was one of the first web consulting firms during the early stages of the History of the Internet, Internet era. History The company was founde ...

Inc. in 1999. He later joined Fair Isaac Corp. and was co-leader of its management consulting organization. Jonathan's work as a management consultant focuses on customer-centric enterprise transformation: Helping large companies redesign sales, marketing, e-channels, customer care, and operations around the needs and desires of target customers. He has advised and guided senior leadership teams of several Fortune 500 companies on multi-year, enterprise-wide transformation initiatives.

Executive Coaching

Since 2012, Jonathan has been an executive coach. He works with senior executives on leadership development and developing high-performance organizations.

Writing

Jonathan is writing a book called ''My Teacher Steve Jobs''. The book is about his friendship from 1981 – 2011 with Apple founder

, and what Jobs taught him about idealism, spirituality and leadership. A first chapter of the book was published by ''High Tech History''.

Awards

Rotenberg was named one of the “Top 100 Young Entrepreneurs in America” by the Association of Collegiate Entrepreneurs.

Computer Reseller News ''CRN'' is an American computer magazine. It was first launched as ''Computer Retail Week'' on June 7, 1982, as a magazine targeted to computer resellers. It soon after was renamed ''Computer Reseller News''. History and profile Originally laun ...

named him “One of the 25 Most Influential Executives in the Personal Computer Industry.” And Slashdot named him one of the “Top 150 i-Technology Heroes of All Time.”

References

External links

Jonathan's home page

Jonathan's Facebook page

CBS Evening News interview (vimeo)
* High Tech Histor

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rotenberg, Jonathan 1963 births Living people Writers from Boston Brown University alumni Harvard Business School alumni Commonwealth School alumni