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The Resource Center has all the info you'll need From content to user feedback, the resource center has the information you need for every level of the entrepreneurial process.
Teresa Briggs currently serves as a Managing Partner at Deloitte's Silicon Valley office. Over the past two years, Briggs has worked to double the firm's staff to at least 1,300. She joined the firm when only seven percent of the partners were women. She arrived at Deloitte & Touche as one of the youngest partners in the company. Rising quickly, she moved to Deloitte's New York office working to redesign the company's corporate strategy at a national level, which then led to her current position. On top of all her accomplishments at Deloitte, Briggs has served on the Management Board of Advisors at her alma mater, the University of Arizona, and she spent eight years serving on the board of the Boys and Girls Club of San Francisco. Teresa also recently participated in the Leadership Group's Annual CEO/Elected Official Cycle‐To‐Work Day Challenge to help curb climate change, riding from Redwood Shores to downtown San Jose and back. She was also recently named a "Woman of Distinction" in the San Jose / Silicon Valley Business Journal, and she has been added to the Business Journal's "Who's Who in Silicon Valley" list. Briggs holds a Bachelor of Science from the University of Arizona.
Carol Bartz is executive chairman of the board of Autodesk, Inc. Bartz was chairman, president and CEO of Autodesk for 14 years and stepped-down in April, 2006. During her tenure, the company diversified its product line and grew revenues from $285 million to $1.523 billion in FY06. Bartz previously held positions at Sun Microsystems, 11 years ago serving as vice president of worldwide field operations and an executive officer of the company. Before joining Sun, she held product line and sales management positions at Digital Equipment Corporation and 3M Corporation. Appointed to President Bush's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, Bartz is one of a select group of industry leaders expected to play a key role in shaping and setting the government's high tech agenda-ranging from R&D funding to new broadband incentives. She also serves on the Board of Directors of BEA Systems, Cisco Systems, Network Appliance, and the Foundation for the National Medals of Science and Technology. Bartz holds an honors degree in computer science from the University of Wisconsin. She was granted an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from the New Jersey Institute of Technology, an honorary Doctor of Science degree from Worcester Polytechnic Institute and an honorary Doctor of Letters degree from William Woods University.
Stanford Graduate School of Business professor Jennifer Aaker shares the power behind creating ideas that can build momentum. Through her research on the perception of happiness and meaning, Aaker describes how these concepts relate to a successful and powerful social media campaign. A well-planned effort catches audience attention and offers them an engaging story. Aaker, co-author of The Dragonfly Effect, also offers several personal and corporate examples of effective viral campaigns that garnered real world, and even life-saving, results.
Winning interscholastic new venture competitions and real-world financing entails focusing on markets rather than technology or planning, says a venture capitalist who judges such contests.
Randy Adams conceived the idea for AuctionDrop in 2002. He took his idea to Silicon Valley veterans Bill Rollinson and Andy Jeffrey, founding the business together later that year. Best described as a 'serial entrepreneur', Randy Adams has more than 25 years of experience in consumer technology. He has successfully founded and sold numerous companies including Emerald City Software, acquired by Adobe Systems; the Internet Shopping Network, acquired by the Home Shopping Network; Navitel Communications, acquired by Spyglass, Inc.; and Newsnet Technologies, Inc., currently under contract with Microsoft to develop specialized renditions of popular magazines for the Tablet PC. Through the years he has assisted many other entrepreneurs in their efforts to secure funding and build their companies. Most notably, he facilitated the initial funding of Yahoo by Sequoia Capital and served on the Board of Directors of Yahoo during its first year of operation. Randy received his undergraduate degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Electrical Engineering.
John R. "Trip" Adler III is an American entrepreneur who started the social publishing company Scribd. Adler grew up in Palo Alto, California, and then attended Harvard University where he studied biophysics and graduated in June 2006.
Dr. John Adler, Jr. and John "Trip" Adler III discuss their entrepreneurial experience and evolution as a business leader: For Dr. Adler, he describes his bumpy course in developing his biotechnology company, Accuray Incorporated; for his son Trip, he emphasizes the persistence and luck in developing Scribd, a social publishing site. Despite building companies in different fields, the two offer the same central advice necessary in building a successful company: trust yourself, have common sense, and there are no rules.
Shai Agassi was a member of the Executive Board of SAP AG until March 31, 2007. He is responsible for the global development efforts for all SAP products and SAP's portfolio of industry-specific solutions. Before his appointment to the SAP Executive Board, Agassi was CEO of SAP Portals and later of the combined company SAP Markets and SAP Portals, which previously operated as a fully owned subsidiary of SAP AG. The subsidiaries were integrated into SAP in April 2002, at which point Agassi was appointed to the Board. A software entrepreneur, Agassi founded TopTier Software (originally called Quicksoft Development) in Israel in 1992 and later moved the company's headquarters to California. He served the company in various capacities, including as chairman, chief technology officer, and then CEO. He managed the strategic plan, technical direction, and relationships with companies such as Baan, SAP, and Microsoft. TopTier was a leading enterprise portal vendor when SAP acquired the company in April 2001. In addition to TopTier Software, Agassi co-founded several other companies with his father, Reuven Agassi, including Quicksoft Ltd., a leading multimedia software localization and distribution company in the Israeli market; TopManage, a developer of small business software that was also acquired by SAP in April 2002 (which became SAP Business One, the small business offering by SAP); and Quicksoft Media, a multimedia production company that ceased operations in 1995. Agassi graduated with honors from Technion, the Israel Institute of Technology, where he received a bachelor's degree in computer science. He is based at SAP Labs United States in Palo Alto, California.
Shai Agassi discusses his entrepreneurial journey from the enterprise software industry to his current work in clean energy. In the process, he describes the "physics of startups", drawing parallels between principles of business and the laws of physics. He emphasizes the importance of acting on an idea before it's adopted by the mainstream and navigating the inevitable uncertainties that can result in success or failure.
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