Rowland Hanson (born 1935) is the current Chairman of CRH & Associates and the CEO of the HMC Company. He is known for his time at
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...
, where he convinced the company to name their new
graphical user interface
The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inste ...
(GUI) "Windows" over the original proposal, "Interface Manager."
Education
Hanson received a
BBA from
Loyola Marymount University
Loyola Marymount University (LMU) is a private Jesuit and Marymount research university in Los Angeles, California. It is located on the west side of the city near Playa Vista. LMU is the parent school to Loyola Law School, which is located ...
and an
MBA
A Master of Business Administration (MBA; also Master's in Business Administration) is a postgraduate degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration such as accounti ...
from the
Wharton School of Business
The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania ( ; also known as Wharton Business School, the Wharton School, Penn Wharton, and Wharton) is the business school of the University of Pennsylvania, a private Ivy League research university in ...
at the
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...
, where he graduated on the Directors List of Distinction.
Work History
Hanson served as the Vice President of Worldwide Marketing for the Neutrogena Corporation, acquired by Johnson & Johnson for a “significant premium.”
Johnson & Johnson’s acquisition of
Neutrogena
Neutrogena Corporation, trading as Neutrogena, is an American company that markets skin care, hair care and cosmetics owned by parent company Johnson & Johnson and is headquartered in Los Angeles, California. – which was largely for the brand’s strength – caught the attention of Microsoft founder Bill Gates and CEO Steve Ballmer, who convinced Hanson to join them in over branding efforts of what eventually became known as Windows.
Hanson served as a branding consultant for companies like
Monsanto
The Monsanto Company () was an American agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology corporation founded in 1901 and headquartered in Creve Coeur, Missouri. Monsanto's best known product is Roundup, a glyphosate-based herbicide, developed in th ...
,
IBM and
Nautilus
The nautilus (, ) is a pelagic marine mollusc of the cephalopod family Nautilidae. The nautilus is the sole extant family of the superfamily Nautilaceae and of its smaller but near equal suborder, Nautilina.
It comprises six living species in t ...
, which created BowFlex.
Hanson now serves as the GM of Strategic Partnering for the Microsoft Alumni Foundation
– the complementary organization to the
Gates Foundation
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), a merging of the William H. Gates Foundation and the Gates Learning Foundation, is an American private foundation founded by Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates. Based in Seattle, Washington, it was l ...
, which focuses on enhancing global healthcare and reducing extreme poverty, and in the U.S., to expand education and access to information technology.
Related Pages
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History of Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows was announced by Bill Gates on November 10, 1983. Microsoft introduced Windows as a graphical user interface for MS-DOS, which had been introduced two years earlier. The product line evolved in the 1990s from an operating envir ...
*
Windows 9x
Windows 9x is a generic term referring to a series of Microsoft Windows computer operating systems produced from 1995 to 2000, which were based on the Windows 95 kernel and its underlying foundation of MS-DOS, both of which were updated in subs ...
*
Delrina
Delrina Corporation was an Form (document), electronic form company in Canada that was acquired by the American software firm NortonLifeLock, Symantec in 1995. The company was best known for WinFax, a software package which enabled computers equ ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hanson, Roland
American technology chief executives
Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania alumni
Microsoft people
Living people
1935 births