UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Thirty-seven years have passed since Lou D'Ambrosio was a Penn State student. Valedictorian of the class of 1986 and College of Business (now Smeal) graduate, with honors, he has used the nearly four decades since to build a notable career that earned him the highest honor given to Penn State graduates, the Distinguished Alumni Award.
During his time at Penn State, D’Ambrosio was a member of Schreyer Honors College’s predecessor, the University Scholars Program. From there he completed his formal education by earning his MBA from Harvard Business School and then began his professional journey with IBM. After more than 15 years with the company he rose to an executive role where he led sales and marketing efforts for IBM’s $12 billion software group.
That experience opened doors for D’Ambrosio to take on CEO positions with Avaya and Sears, and serve as executive chairman of Sensus. From there he joined Goldman Sachs as a senior adviser where he still works as one of the firm’s partners, and leads its Value Accelerator.
The Value Accelerator is designed to help companies that it has invested in become more valuable over time. D’Ambrosio and his team leverage Goldman Sachs’ resources and adviser network to help companies improve in areas such as pricing optimization, sustainability, company culture, data strategy and more.
In reflecting on what’s helped him sustain success in high-level jobs, D’Ambrosio notes how living abroad with his family in Tokyo, Japan, brought him new insight.
“[In Tokyo] I embraced the experience of learning about a new culture and about a society that’s been around for thousands of years,” D’Ambrosio said. “Upon reflection, it helped me understand, very recently, just how powerful of a motivator learning is for me.”
While he might not have always been able to pinpoint how that drive to learn helped him become a successful leader, D’Ambrosio has a firm grasp on how it helps him now at Goldman Sachs.
“The constant pursuit of learning and new information, new experiences is incredibly beneficial,” he noted. “With private equity companies, there are so many business models that are just so different from each other. Whether it’s an online auctioneer, a plastics fabricator, or an artificial intelligence company, they’re all unique in their own ways,” he said.
D’Ambrosio also understands that a company’s people are at the core of driving any successful business forward.
“It’s been a privilege to be able to lead hundreds of thousands of people. [In that role] you try to do the right thing for the people. You try to inspire what’s possible,” he said. “You know that people on your team are going to go home, and part of their day is going to be based on the impact you may have been able to have on them.”
His success in positively impacting his teams and delivering results for his companies have afforded D’Ambrosio opportunities to make presentations at the World Economic Forum, serve on panel discussions with influential thinkers like Arianna Huffington, and work with nonprofits benefiting an orphanage, biomedical research, and the arts. However, he said, he hasn’t lost sight of one very important element that makes him who he is.
“[My family] came from a blue-collar, closely knit neighborhood in South Philadelphia, and in many ways we didn’t have much. In other ways, we had everything,” he said. “With my parents, there was never an option in terms of me not going to college. It all started with their belief in me and then was nurtured in school.”
D’Ambrosio said that when Penn State President Neeli Bendapudi called to share the news of his Distinguished Alumni Award, he was immediately grateful and enthusiastic to reconnect with Penn State and reflect on “one of the most formative experiences” of his life. After that though, his thoughts turned to his family.
“When my dad passed away, one of the first philanthropic ventures my wife and I started was a scholarship in recognition of my father, for Penn State, for Schreyer Honors College,” D’Ambrosio said. “During the call about the Distinguished Alumni Award there was a reflection on my dad and how proud he would be.”