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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.
Andy Freire is Axialent's co-founder and CEO. Entrepreneur in the business and social domains, after working at Procter & Gamble, he founded and led Officenet, a company that revolutionized the industry of distribution (retail) of office supplies in Latin America growing from one to almost a thousand employees in a 4 year span. When he was 18, he created the Fundacion Iniciativa, for the promotion of leadership among the Latin American youth. He collaborates weekly with CNN in Spanish as "Expert Entrepreneur." He was distinguished by the World Economic Forum as "Global Leader for Tomorrow", by the Endeavor Foundation as "Latin American Entrepreneur of the Year" and he was one of two finalists who received awards as "World Young Business Achiever" in the Philippines in 2002. Andy has a Licensure in Economics magna cum laude from the University of San Andres in Buenos Aires, Argentina and an OPM from the Harvard Business School. His several projects got funded by world recognized financial institutions such as GE Capital, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, George Soros, KKR, Santander Bank, Bank of America, Warburg Pincus, Louis Vuitton, GP Investimentos and Tommy Lee Putnam.
Michael Dell is the founder of the computer company Dell, Inc. He created one of the most profitable computer companies in the world with annual sales of up to $50 billion American dollars. Dell has also become one of the wealthiest people in the world with a 4th place listing on the Forbes rich Americans list in 2005 with an estimated worth of $18 billion. Michael Saul Dell was born on the 23rd of February, 1965 in Houston to an orthodontist father and a mother that worked as a money manager. Dell was interested in computers from a very young age and was already pulling them apart at the age of 15. He attended the University of Texas with hopes of becoming a doctor but abandoned studies to start his own business at just 19 years of age. With just one thousand dollars in his pocket Dell started "PC's Limited" in 1984. From his university dorm room Dell started building and selling personal computers from stock computer parts. The idea that set the young entrepreneur apart from others was to sell directly to the customer, rather than going through a third party to sell his products. PC's Limited allowed the customer to customize their computer before it was custom built to their specifications. The prices could also be kept much lower than PC's Limited's competition as they had no stores to maintain or middlemen to pay commissions to. All computers were sold direct to the customer with the use of order forms, phone orders, and now Internet orders. In 1988 PC's Limited had a name change to "Dell Computer Corporation" and had an initial public offering (IPO) that valued the company at roughly $80 million. By 1992 Dell Computer Corporation was listed on the Fortune 500 list of the five hundred largest companies in the world, making Michael Dell the youngest ever CEO to head a Fortune 500 company. The company continued to grow and expand dramatically year after year, eventually selling more c
Edgar Miles Bronfman, Jr. (born May 16, 1955), formerly CEO of Seagram and vice-chairman of Vivendi Universal, has been CEO of Warner Music since 2004. He is the son of Edgar Miles Bronfman and the grandson of Samuel Bronfman, one of the most wealthy and influential Jewish families in Canada. Edgar Jr. is the second of five children, and was indicated by his grandfather in 1971 as being suitable as the heir to the Seagram Company. From his early days, Bronfman's interest in the arts was apparent. He was particularly active in school theatre, an interest his parents supported by donating to construct The Ann and Edgar Bronfman Theatre during a 1967 expansion at The Collegiate School, the prestigious private school in Manhattan which Edgar Jr. attended. Edgar Jr. and his classmates created a documentary film of the school that spawned the Collegiate Film Festival, an event that gained positive press in The Los Angeles Times and The Village Voice. Bronfman proceeded to a brief career in entertainment in the 1970s as a film and Broadway producer. The summer before his final year of high school, in 1972, he was a credited producer on the film, The Blockhouse. Despite his inexperience, Bronfman's involvement was accepted because of his connections and access to financing. In return, he learned many of the tricks of the trade by watching his more experienced peers. In 1973, Bronfman began a songwriting career under the pseudonyms Junior Miles and Sam Roman. He often collaborated with Bruce Roberts on songs like "Whisper in the Dark", which he gave to Dionne Warwick to record in thanks for introducing him to his first wife, Sherry. His Efer Productions company was signed by Universal Studios in 1977 to a three-year movie production contract. He produced the unsuccessful film The Border, which starred Jack Nicholson. In 1982, Bronfman returned to the Seagram Company, spending three months learnin
Carleton S. (Carly) Fiorina was president and chief executive officer of Hewlett-Packard Company from 1999 to 2005. She served as chairman of the board from 2000 to 2005. Prior to joining HP, Fiorina spent nearly 20 years at AT&T and Lucent Technologies, where she held a number of senior leadership positions and directed Lucent's initial public offering and subsequent spin-off from AT&T. Fiorina was named an honorary fellow of the London Business School in July 2001. In 2002, she was honored with the Appeal of Conscience Award, and in 2003 she received the Concern Worldwide "Seeds of Hope" Award in recognition of her worldwide efforts to make global citizenship a priority for business. The Private Sector Council honored Fiorina with its 2004 Leadership Award for her contributions to improving the business of government. Also in 2004, the White House appointed her to the U.S. Space Commission. Fiorina has a bachelor's degree in medieval history and philosophy from Stanford University. She holds a master's degree in business administration from the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland at College Park, Md., and a master of science degree from MIT's Sloan School.
Randy Komisar joined Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers in 2005 as a partner. For several years prior Randy has partnered with entrepreneurs creating businesses with leading edge technologies. He was a co-founder of Claris Corporation, served as CEO for LucasArts Entertainment and Crystal Dynamics, and acted as a "virtual CEO" for such companies as WebTV, Mirra and GlobalGiving. He was a founding Director of TiVo where he is currently chairman of the Nominating and Governance Committee. Earlier Randy served as CFO of GO Corporation and Senior Counsel for Apple Computer, following a private practice in Technology Law. Randy holds a BA in Economics from Brown University and a JD form Harvard Law School. He is a Consulting Professor of Entrepreneurship at Stanford University and author of the best-selling book The Monk and the Riddle, as well as several articles on leadership and entrepreneurship. Randy frequently speaks here and abroad on such topics.
Timothy C. Draper is the Founder and a Managing Director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson. He was instrumental in bringing viral marketing to web-based e-mail to geometrically spread the successes of Hotmail and YahooMail, and the practice has been adopted as a standard marketing technique by countless businesses and organizations. Draper launched the DFJ Global Network, an international network of early-stage venture capital funds with offices in over 30 cities around the globe. He also serves on the boards of Skype, SocialText, Project Y, MailFrontier and Chroma Graphics. He was an original investor in Parametric Technology (PMTC), Tumbleweed Communications (TMWD), Overture.com (OVER), Digidesign (AVID), Preview Travel (TVLY), Four11 (YHOO), Combinet (CSCO), and Redgate (AOL). He also founded or co-founded Wasatch Ventures (Salt Lake City), Zone Ventures (LA), Draper Atlantic (Reston), Draper Triangle (Pittsburg), Timberline Ventures (Portland), Polaris Fund (Anchorage), Draper Fisher Jurvetson Gotham (NYC) and DFJ Frontier (Sacramento and Santa Barbara). Draper has been recognized as a leader in entrepreneurship and venture capital through numerous awards and honors, and he has frequent TV, radio, and headline appearances. He was number seven on Forbes? Midas List and number 52 on the list of the most influential Harvard Alumni. He was also named AlwaysOn Magazine?s number one top venture capital dealmaker for 2008. Tim is the course creator and Chairman of BizWorld, a 501c3 organization built around simulated teaching of entrepreneurship and business to children. He holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University, and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Nominated by Time magazine in 1995 as "one of the 100 young leaders for the new millennium", and leader of the first successful South American expedition to Mt Everest and K2, Dr Rodrigo Jordan has applied the leadership and team-building skills needed to climb the world's most challenging mountains to business and education. A civil and industrial engineer, Jordan earned a Ph.D. in Organizational Administration from Oxford University and is today a lecturer in Leadership and Innovation at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, as well as a lecturer in the School of Engineering at University Alfonso Ibañez. His mountaineering successes gave him the idea of launching his own company called Vertical. This organization, along with the charitable foundation, Fundación Vertical, delivers outdoor education and training services to corporations and individuals, particularly children from inner-city areas. By involving children in nature conservation, Jordan hopes to rear future generations of environmentally conscious people. Jordan also directed TELEDUC, a centre for distance learning of the Catholic University of Chile and in 1998 was appointed executive director of the Corporación de Televisión, the most important television network in Chile, where he served for two years. In 2004, he was awarded the "Order of Gabriela Mistral" for his significant contribution to Chilean education. The following year, he was elected chairman of the Chilean National Foundation for the Alleviation of Poverty. He is currently serving his second term as Chairman.
Dr. Khanna has been a member of the faculty of the Harvard Business School since 1993, where he studies, and works with, multinational and indigenous companies and investors in emerging markets worldwide. He has served as course head of the required Strategy course in the Harvard MBA program, and chaired the executive education program on Strategy, Leadership & Governance. Currently, he teaches in Harvard's comprehensive general management executive education programs. He earned a Bachelors of Science in Engineering degree from Princeton University in 1988, summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, and a Ph.D. in Business Economics from Harvard University in 1993. His current research focuses on understanding the drivers of entrepreneurship worldwide. As part of the Emerging Giants project, he seeks to understand how to build world-class companies from emerging markets worldwide. A related project, The Dragon and the Elephant, zeros in on China and India, and identifies best practices for local entrepreneurs and multinationals operating in each of these two countries. His scholarly work is published in a range of journals over the past fifteen years. During this time, he has continued to serve as a co-editor of several prestigious economics and management journals. A forthcoming book, Billions of Entrepreneurs: How China and India are Reshaping their Futures and Yours, will be published by Harvard Business School Press (Penguin in South Asia) in 2007. Numerous articles in the Harvard Business Review (e.g. Emerging Giants: Building World Class Companies in Emerging Markets, 2006) and Foreign Policy (e.g. Can India Overtake China?, 2003) distil the implications of this research for practicing managers. Professor Khanna's work has been profiled in news-magazines around the world, including The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, the Far Eastern Economic Review, and newspapers in China, India, and el
Deborah Collin Stephens has spent nearly 30 years working with leaders in corporations, government, and politics. She joined Gary Heil to form The Center For Innovative Leadership and together they co-authored 6 books, with three reaching the best sellers list: Maslow on Management, One Size Fits One, and Revisiting The Human Side of Enterprise. Her most recent book, This Is Not The Life I Ordered: 50 Ways To Keep Your Head Above Water When Life Keeps Dragging You Down, has garnered praise from entrepreneurs such as Jessica McClintock, Gerry Laybourne and Debbi Fields as well as writers such as Amy Tan and Arianna Huffington. Deborah co-founded the first e-learning program in the nation called Leadership Lessons From The Fastlane. which was viewed by over 1 million executives worldwide on Broadcast.com/Yahoo. She has been a guest lecturer in the Industry Thought Leaders program at Stanford University and a faculty member in the Stanford Professional Development and Executive Education program. She has also served as a judge for the Stanford Business and Engineering School's Entrepreneur's Business Challenge Contest where she enjoys spending time and effort nurturing and coaching future entrepreneurs.
ooma is the result of Andrew's desire to combine his technical expertise with his passion for innovative and fun consumer products. Andrew Co-founded his first technology company, an ISP in Las Vegas, at age 15. He then joined Cisco as a full-time employee, and at 17 he became the youngest person ever to earn Cisco's top technical honor - a CCIE certification. He also earned a second one that same year, making him one of just eight people at the time to do so. At age 19, he moved to Cisco's Global Center of Expertise to focus on critical networking issues for large service providers in the Pacific Rim and Latin America. After several years at Cisco, Andrew joined start-up core router company Procket Networks as an engineer. He remained there until 2004, when he decided to return to his entrepreneurial roots as the founder of ooma. Andrew was recently named by the editors of Businessweek as one of the top entrepreneurs under the age of 30 most likely to shape the world's digital future.
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