Professor Tilson’s industry experience includes working in strategy consulting, mostly with McKinsey & Company, along with a decade in R&D and project management in the telecom, high-tech and media industries. He has consulted for clients in financial services, insurance, telecom, software and energy. His track record of accomplishments includes winning a Royal Television Society Award (British equivalent to an Emmy) for broadcast technology. Having lived and worked on three continents also gives him an understanding of business and collaboration in an international context. During a three year stint as Associate Dean of the Full-Time MBA he led initiatives to change the school’s approach to program pricing resulting in increased domestic applications. Rationalized program calendar to improve career outcomes and student satisfaction. Expanded programming for professional skill development to include problem solving and ethics while increasing emphasis on communication and teamwork skills with experiential learning. Initiated efforts to increase school’s visibility within the industry and to update the curriculum.
His teaching interests include strategic and business systems consulting, business process improvement, information systems, and analytics. He has led experiential learning for over 150 student teams through consulting projects with external companies and organizations. He has taught in the Simon Executive MBA program and led customized executive courses on teamwork, problem-solving, and project management. He also teaches courses on data management and on "Big Data" using Hadoop, Hive, and Spark (dataframes, machine learning, and data streaming) technologies.