\nPhotos by Bryce Vickmark
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Louis \u201cLou\u201d Shipley \u201985 traces the roots of his entrepreneurial success to the summer after his sophomore year at Trinity and a fitful night\u2019s sleep on a park bench in DeKalb County, Illinois. Shipley had taken a summer job selling encyclopedias door to door but neglected to arrange accommodations for his first 24 hours in the Midwest. By the end of the summer, he had racked up thousands of dollars in earnings.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was 100 percent commission, and it paid for a big chunk of my Trinity tuition. The experience taught me a lot about self-reliance,\u2019\u201d Shipley says. \u201cThe whole thing about entrepreneurship is you bet on yourself\u2014you see a market opportunity, raise some money, start a company or join a start-up, and create something from nothing. When you succeed, there\u2019s not only a big financial upside but also a great learning experience and boost of confidence. That\u2019s the path I\u2019ve chosen to take, and it started with that experience in Illinois. I\u2019m fortunate to have had success and to have worked with many great people who helped me succeed.\u201d<\/p>\n His early encyclopedia-sales triumph was a harbinger. Shipley studied at the London School of Economics his junior year and graduated from Trinity with a degree in economics. He earned an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School, spent a couple of years on Wall Street, and joined his first software start-up, Avid Technology, in 1990.<\/p>\n Shipley lived in Japan with his young family while managing Avid\u2019s Asia-Pacific business\u2014successfully competing with Sony on its home turf\u2014and went on to become CEO of Reflectent Software, a start-up later acquired by Citrix Systems Inc., where Shipley spent several years as a general manager before joining another tech start-up, VMTurbo (now Turbonomic), as CEO.<\/p>\n In December 2013, Shipley was recruited to become CEO of Massachusetts-based Black Duck Software, a struggling open source compliance business. Over the next four years, Shipley orchestrated a remarkable turnaround. He refocused Black Duck\u2019s business from open source compliance to open source security, and his timing was superb. Open source software use was exploding, and software security was becoming a top priority in c-suites and boardrooms worldwide.<\/p>\n Shipley was first to capitalize on the trend and helped create the open source security market, which today has many players. In four years, he quadrupled the number of Black Duck employees and, more importantly, increased Black Duck\u2019s value by more than 300 percent to the $565 million acquisition price global software giant Synopsys Inc. paid in 2017. Today he is a vice president of strategy at Synopsys, a role in which he continues many of his previous duties as Black Duck CEO.<\/p>\n Through it all, Shipley, who recently joined Trinity\u2019s Board of Trustees, has sustained his relationship with the college, not only as a proud alumnus but also as a recruiter and mentor for several current Bantams and other college graduates. Shipley created a rotational development program (RDP) at Black Duck, allowing new college graduates to move through multiple functional groups of the company to get a better feel for how they might want to focus their careers.<\/p>\n \u201cAs a young graduate, it\u2019s good to try multiple jobs to see what you like and don\u2019t like,\u201d says Shipley, also a lecturer at Harvard Business School and MIT Sloan School of Management. \u201cSo the program works well for both the employee who is learning and the employer who gets to see the employee in a number of different settings. We created two tracks for RDP employees: business\u2014which includes sales, marketing, and finance\u2014and technical\u2014which includes software development, customer support, and software testing.<\/p>\n In Trinity students, Shipley sees the qualities that make successful employees and leaders. \u201cThe first thing is intellectual curiosity,\u201d he says. \u201cSecond is a broad, diverse education\u2014they have an understanding of how to look at data and facts to help drive and grow a business. And they understand the need for diligence and hard work. We\u2019ve found that Trinity students don\u2019t get frustrated with work that\u2019s hard; they stick it out. And finally, a really important thing that is sometimes overlooked is emotional IQ\u2014social intelligence. Trinity kids have that in spades, and it\u2019s really important in terms of learning how organizations work, what your role is, how to work within the company, and how to work within the team.\u201d<\/p>\n One place Shipley learned an appreciation for teamwork was on Trinity\u2019s ice hockey team. He played three years for Coach John Dunham and has been a supporter of the team ever since. He fondly recounts being one of a few die-hard Trinity ice hockey fans who were in the stands with the players\u2019 parents in Minneapolis in 2015 to watch Trinity defeat the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point to win the Bantams\u2019 first NCAA DIII national championship.<\/p>\n Ice hockey also became a part of the vibrant culture at Black Duck (now Synopsys), where Shipley and some of the 10 Trinity graduates he has hired meet at a local rink for weekly early-morning games. Among those graduates is Will Gray \u201914, who joined the enterprise sales team at Black Duck in 2016. Gray, now attending Babson College\u2019s F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business, says Shipley inspired his decision to attend business school\u2014and helped make it possible.<\/p>\n \u201cI spent two years working under Lou,\u201d Gray says. \u201cAnd then\u2014and this is just another example of how supportive he is, for Trinity people but really for all of his employees\u2014I reached out to him knowing that he went to business school and because it was something that I was thinking about pursuing. \u2026 He gave me advice, spoke to me multiple times about it, and wrote my recommendation letter, which I think was a major part of me not only getting in but also receiving scholarships. Without his recommendation, I don\u2019t think I\u2019d be in the position I am today.\u201d<\/p>\n According to Trinity Director of Career Development Joe Catrino, the tradition of alumni helping other alums, current students, and even prospective students, is a long and proud one at the college.<\/p>\n \u201cThe \u2018pay it forward\u2019 mentality is consistent over the years,\u201d Catrino says. \u201cSomeone helped them, then they were able to turn their opportunities into really good experience, and now they\u2019re paying it forward to others. The depth of value of our alumni base is just fantastic.\u201d<\/p>\n One way Shipley has broadened his reach to current Trinity students is through a yearly recruiting visit to campus. In fun, informative, interactive sessions, he and other Black Duck staff have helped groups of anywhere from 25 to 60 students understand that there is a place for liberal arts graduates in the tech industry. Joe Gamache \u201982, a software architect at Black Duck when Shipley was hired as CEO, has joined Shipley for some of the visits.<\/p>\n \u201cOne thing Lou talked about on one of the rides down [to the college],\u201d Gamache says, \u201cwas that a lot of Trinity undergrads get exposed to opportunities in medicine, finance, and law, but he didn\u2019t feel that there was enough exposure to the tech industry and to entrepreneurship. So we started doing that. Many students came to our events, and we\u2019ve had a lot of interest as a result. I don\u2019t think Lou was out to change the world with this but rather to change a few people\u2019s lives, and I believe it was quite successful in that regard.\u201d<\/p>\n For Shipley, the mission doesn\u2019t end there.<\/p>\n Hartford, he says, \u201cneeds a turnaround,\u201d and it is tech companies like Black Duck that will make that happen. Leading the way, Shipley believes, will be Trinity students and others who have learned the habits of mind to enable them to respond nimbly and to thrive in a rapidly evolving market. In the business world, Shipley says, \u201cWhat we need are people who have a liberal arts background, where you\u2019re taught a variety of things and you\u2019re taught to question things and you\u2019re taught to prioritize things and have an inquisitive, curious mind. Everyone says we need more STEM graduates. What we need are people who can think.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Shipley creates program to help employees find the right fit By Abe Loomis Photos by Bryce Vickmark Louis \u201cLou\u201d Shipley \u201985 traces the roots of his entrepreneurial success to the summer after his sophomore year at Trinity and a fitful night\u2019s sleep on a park bench in DeKalb County, Illinois. Shipley had taken a summer … <\/p>\n![\"Lou](\"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/reporter-winter2019\/files\/2019\/02\/lou-shipley092018-16nocc.jpg\")
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