UCLA Anderson Alumni Profile – Dr. Martine Rosenblatt
It’s clear that MBA education can take you to realms of success you hadn’t imagined, and pursuing your degree with a level of curiosity in a wide variety of fields is a sure way to maximize the value of your degree.
One UCLA Anderson School of Management alumnus, Martine Rothblatt, Ph.D., (MBA, 81) is an inspiring example of the heights one can reach with a high degree of determination and expertise in diverse pursuits. She also serves as a powerful role model for transgendered people in business, and is a fierce advocate of visibility for her community.
Currently, Rothblatt is the CEO and chair of United Therapeutics Corporation, a biotech company that specializes in products that assist those with chronic and life threatening health conditions. UTC is renowned as a leader in the treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension. Rothblatt’s passion for these breakthroughs holds a foundation in her personal life—her youngest daughter has the disease.
She regularly falls on lists of the most well compensated female executives in the country. In 1990, Rothblatt formed a company which offered satellite-based radio, which would later evolve into the spectacularly successful Sirius XM Radio.
Rothblatt’s interest in satellite communications came during a trip that she took during time off from college in the mid-70’s, when she visited a NASA tracking station in the Seychelles. It was here that she discovered her passion for the technology, and her 1977 graduate thesis held the beginnings of her future breakthroughs in satellite communications.
She went on to earn her joint MBA/JD degree at UCLA, and assumed a great interest in the legal implication of space colonization. Her MBA thesis was used as a model for breaking down the global telecommunication monopoly.
Her entry into the life sciences, as mentioned, was motivated by her youngest daughter’s struggle with pulmonary hypertension, and in 2001 she earned her Ph.D. in medical ethics from the Queen Mary University of London’s School of Medicine and Dentistry.
Yet another notable addition to Rothblatt’s long list of professional and educational accomplishments is her status as a licensed airplane and helicopter pilot.
Rothblatt is a true innovator. According to a 2014 profile in Fortune, “[she] has a knack for inventing or backing technologies that initially seem far-out but ultimately end up embedded in people’s lives.” In partnership with biotech company Synthetic Genomics, United Therapeutics has worked to develop the highly advanced technology that develops pigs with genetically modified organs for human transplant, a procedure known as xenotransplantation.
Her passion for benefiting humanity through technology has taken further form in Rothblatt’s launching of Terasem, an organization that supports efforts to implement ‘cyberconsciousness’ in an effort to advance the evolution of human intelligence through technology. She is a true believer in the power of robotics for this purpose, and she foresees robotics and artificial intelligence as pivotal in the treatment of Alzheimers and other difficult to treat diseases.
Rothblatt’s coming out as transgender in 1994 has informed much of her work and activism. Among her books is the pioneeringThe Apartheid of Sex: Manifesto on the Freedom of Gender in which she asserts her belief in the fluidity of gender. She has also published widely on her work in xenotransplantation, and on the various aspects of medical bioethics.
In a 2014 talk with UCLA Anderson dean Judy Olian, Rothblatt shared her story as part of a lecture series in entrepreneurship. “Always be open-minded … but also be practical. Finally don’t give up. Entrepreneurs need that burning passion. Everybody’s life is an entrepreneurial project.”
About the Author
Maggie Boccella
Maggie Boccella, a lifelong resident of Philadelphia, is a freelance writer, artist and photographer. She has consulted on various film and multimedia projects, and she also serves as a juror for the city's annual LGBTQIA Film Festival.
