Louis J. D'Ambrosio is an American business executive and a partner at

Goldman Sachs The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational investment bank and financial services company. Founded in 1869, Goldman Sachs is headquartered in Lower Manhattan in New York City, with regional headquarters in many internationa ...

. He is the former CEO of Sears Holding Corporation and

Avaya Avaya LLC(), formerly Avaya Inc., is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Morristown, New Jersey, that provides cloud communications and workstream collaboration services. The company's platform includes unified commun ...

, and he also served as executive chairman of Sensus. D'Ambrosio also worked at

IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...

for 16 years and served on its worldwide management committee.

Early life and education

D'Ambrosio earned his

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, B.S., B.Sc., SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree that is awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Scienc ...

degree from

Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a Public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related Land-grant university, land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsyl ...

(''

summa cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sout ...

'' and

Valedictorian Valedictorian is an academic title for the class rank, highest-performing student of a graduation, graduating class of an academic institution in the United States. The valedictorian is generally determined by an academic institution's grade poin ...

) in 1986 and received his

MBA A Master of Business Administration (MBA) is a professional degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration; elective courses may allow further study in a particular a ...

from

Harvard Business School Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate school, graduate business school of Harvard University, a Private university, private Ivy League research university. Located in Allston, Massachusetts, HBS owns Harvard Business Publishing, which p ...

Career

D'Ambrosio joined

after college, working there for sixteen years. During his time at IBM, D'Ambrosio held various leadership roles in IBM Global Services, Software, and sales and marketing, including leading the company's worldwide strategy for IBM Global Service and field operations for IBM software. He led a vertical business unit in Asia Pacific and was a member of IBM's worldwide management committee. When he left the company in August 2002, he was responsible for worldwide sales and marketing for IBM's $12 billion software group. D'Ambrosio joined

in 2002 as vice president for services and by July 2006, he became president and chief executive officer. He had been president of global sales and marketing at Avaya, and prior to that had been in charge of Avaya's $2 billion global services business unit, including network consulting, integration, maintenance and managed services. His work turned Avaya into one of the leading companies in the IP

Telephony Telephony ( ) is the field of technology involving the development, application, and deployment of telecommunications services for the purpose of electronic transmission of voice, fax, or data, between distant parties. The history of telephony is ...

market. His leadership also saw Avaya transition from selling hardware to selling software as the company continued to grow in value. Additionally, during his tenure as CEO, he took Avaya private, delivering attractive returns to its shareholders. In February 2011, Sears Holdings named D'Ambrosio chief executive officer and president after a 3 year long search to find a new CEO, for the six months prior to his election as CEO, he worked on the company's board of directors. He had worked as a consultant to Sears' board for the previous six months. D'Ambrosio was brought to Sears with the hope that he would be able to reverse the company's declining public image and sales, restoring the store to prior relevance which had faded since the adoption of online shopping. Prior to his hire, the company suffered from consistent declines in both sales and its stock valuation, mostly due to the ongoing macroeconomic environment, as well as delays with the new Kenmore product line. On January 7, 2013, it was announced that he would step down at the end of its fiscal year on February 2, 2013 due to family health matters. On August 19, 2013, it was announced he would be chairman of the board for Sensus, based in

Raleigh, North Carolina Raleigh ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of North Carolina. It is the List of municipalities in North Carolina, second-most populous city in the state (after Charlotte, North Carolina, Charlotte) ...

. After serving as executive chairman of Sensus, D'Ambrosio was a senior advisor at

. He later became a partner at the firm and leads its Value Accelerator.

Other

In February 2010, D'Ambrosio was elected to the board of trustees of the Jackson Laboratory, a nonprofit biomedical research institution in Bar Harbor, Maine. D'Ambrosio presented at the

World Economic Forum The World Economic Forum (WEF) is an international non-governmental organization, international advocacy non-governmental organization and think tank, based in Cologny, Canton of Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded on 24 January 1971 by German ...

and served on panel discussions. D'Ambrosio was one of the executive producers of Mandy Gonzalez's debut album ''Fearless''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:D'Ambrosio, Lou Living people American retail chief executives Harvard Business School alumni Pennsylvania State University alumni Avaya employees American technology chief executives Year of birth missing (living people) Goldman Sachs people