Yale School of Management - Alumni Leaders

"At Yale SOM, I learned that certain approaches, disciplines and ideas could be applied to any setting, regardless of sector, regardless of size of the enterprise. This powerful notion and the content that informed it, freed me to explore all of my interests, as a professional, not simply as an observer, enthusiast or pundit. What I learned at Yale SOM of finance, the design of organizations, power relationships within them, and how to make change occur, was not just a set of skills to be an investment banker, an executive in a large company or a consultant. Rather, I learned how to integrate all of these and how their boundaries in achieving anything change depending upon setting and circumstance. Yale SOM prepared me well for my diverse roles in global companies, entrepreneurial businesses, elective politics, and not-for-profits."

James E. Goulka is chief executive officer of the National Technology Transfer Center (NTTC) located in Wheeling, West Virginia. Created by an act of Congress, the Center intermediates the commercialization of technologies originated in federal laboratories and brings new private sector technologies to federal agencies to meet their mission objectives. Primarily working with NASA, the NTTC is, in essence, a technology intellectual property broker, developing partnerships, licenses, and collaborative research both to and from federal labs.

Prior to coming to the NTTC, Mr. Goulka was president and chief executive officer of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation. The Foundation maintains and preserves the architectural masterpieces of Taliesin in Spring Green, Wisconsin and Taliesin West in Scottsdale, Arizona. In addition, it houses the Frank Lloyd Wright Archives, which has been characterized as the largest concentration of the work of a single major artist in the world.

Mr. Goulka was also president of the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture which offers accredited bachelor and professional masters degrees in architecture.

Prior to his roles in the not-for-profit sector, Mr. Goulka was chief executive officer of two technology infrastructure companies, one of which he sold to Apple Computer, Inc.

Mr. Goulka also served as chief operating officer of Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. where he was responsible for changing the focus of the 230-year-old book publisher from print to digital publishing of multimedia CD-ROMs and Internet-delivered content. Under his leadership, Britannica developed new distribution channels in the United States and in twelve other countries. He joined the company as chief financial officer.

Earlier in his career, Mr. Goulka worked at institutions now part of Citigroup and JP Morgan Chase where he provided corporate finance, focusing on leveraged buyouts, workouts, and agribusiness. He also worked with global companies and governments in twenty-five countries.

In the public sector, he was a candidate for U.S. Congress from Illinois, was an elected township trustee and school board member in Illinois, and served as a mayoral appointee to the Dallas County Community Action Committee.

Mr. Goulka has served on many educational and cultural boards, including Steppenwolf Theatre, the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy, Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois, Chicago Shakespeare, the Nathan Hale Foundation, the Dallas Zoo, and the associate board of the Cox School of Business at SMU.

He has been a guest speaker at Harvard Business School, Ohio State, Thunderbird, Marquette, and Lake Forest Graduate School of Business.

Mr. Goulka earned both an MBA and a BA from Yale University. He was a member of the charter class of Yale’s School of Management.