Prior to her 2020 fellowship with the Harvard Advanced Leadership Initiative, Mary
Sauer was co-founder, senior vice president, and a board member of Sonic Solutions, a
company she and her partners bootstrapped, took public, and grew into a leading
developer of digital audio and video software. She previously worked at Lucasfilm,
serving as the director of marketing for the Pixar group and the vice president of
marketing for The Droid Works.

A seed-stage investor and supporter of entrepreneurial activity at universities, Mary has
judged business plans and advised start-ups at the University of Pennsylvania’s
Wharton School and Harvard Business School; she also serves on the Harvard SEAS
Dean’s Advisory Cabinet and the Stanford MLA Advisory Council and is currently an
Advisor to the Harvard Project on Workforce. She has served on multiple school boards and
was a trustee of the Buck Institute of Aging. She has a deep interest in Renaissance art
and history, and she and her husband have sponsored art restoration and conservation
projects in Florence, Italy.