Sam Seltzer has been committed to personal enterprise throughout his life. In 1960, he founded Allison Corporation, a company that manufactures and sells a wide variety of automobile accessories with facilities in East Asia, Europe, and the United States. Allison was one of the first American companies to do business in Mainland China.
By the early 1980s, Sam came to recognize the need for undergraduate education in business skills, specifically for those young people wishing to join family enterprises or for those willing to make the commitment and to take the risks to start their own businesses. Thus, he became the founding chairman of Cornell PEP (Personal Enterprise Program); a program which began with one course in Business Planning, quickly grew to over 35 courses, mostly at the undergraduate level, and eventually merged into Entrepreneurship@Cornell (Entrepreneurship@Cornell).
In 1954, Seltzer started one of the first manufacturing operations to be set up under the Puerto Rican government's Operation Boot Strap. He was founder and an officer of the Commonwealth Manufacturers Association of Puerto Rico and the Plastic Manufacturers Association of Puerto Rico. The U.S. and Puerto Rican governments appointed him to serve on their respective committees to determine minimum wages for the island. From 1975-92, Sam Seltzer was also an officer and trustee of the Pension Fund of the United Furniture and Bedding Workers Union.
Sam Seltzer is a graduate of Cornell University.
Jerry Goldman is a senior tax partner at Ernst & Young. Goldman began his career in audit at Arthur Young before swtiching to the tax field. Arthur Young merged with Ernst and Whinney in 1989 to become Ernst & Young.
Jerry Goldman received his underegraduate degree from Cornell University and his MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
<p>Emmy Award-winning musician Peter Buffett has an acclaimed career that spans more than 28 years as a professional musician, composer, philanthropist and author. He began his career as the musical mind behind many of the early MTV bumpers of the '80s, and the climactic crescendo in the memorable "Fire Dance" scene in 1990's Oscar winning film Dances with Wolves. </p> <p>From 1987 to present, Buffett has released 15 records, and has been signed to such labels as Narada, Epic and Hollywood Records. He now owns two independent labels, BisonHead and BeSide Records.</p> <p>Buffett's latest venture is his inspiring new book, Life Is What You Make It. Personal and revealing, instructive and intuitive, Life Is What You Make It is about following passions over conventions, transcending your circumstances or status, taking up the reins of your destiny, and living life to its fullest. </p>
<p>As an Image and Body Language Specialist, Sara Canuso, President of A Suitable Solution, empowers individuals to use non-verbal communication, image, and body language as tools to communicate effectively with others and to understand not only what others say, but to discover the unspoken messages and feelings behind their words and actions. Her insightful keynote presentations, business seminars and one-on-one coaching on the Impact of Image deliver new ideas and practical tools in the areas of creating powerful first impressions, developing a positive self image, dressing for success, and inspiring confidence. </p> <p>Canuso is the creator of Campus to Corporate, a program held in area colleges to help students prepare to enter the workplace. She is a certified seminar leader and known for her informative and popular column in Philadelphia Maven and her Winning Look articles in the Legal Intelligencer and the Burlington County Straight Word. </p> <p>Sara Canuso attended Temple University.</p>
<p>Young Mi Park is COO of Thevi Cosmetics. She has built her career expanding global brands and guiding businesses and new ventures. She has held leadership roles in Marketing, Strategy and General Management at Sesame Workshop, Levi Strauss, Burger King and American Express and has also worked at ambitious "fourth sector†educational start-ups and other new ventures, including her own bootstrap initiative. She has led successful turnarounds of failing business units, received industry recognitions for best brand image and advertising and spearheaded successful new product and new market development.</p> <p>In addition to extensive experience in the U.S., she has worked in or with businesses in Korea, Taiwan, Australia, Guam Japan, France, Canada and Mexico and devised business development strategies for Europe and Latin America. </p> <p>Young Mi Park has an undergraduate degree from Cornell University and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management.</p>
<p>Carol Rattray is Managing Director and Co- Founder of Zoomdojo.</p> <p>Since the mid 1990\'s, she has been investing, and advising primarily start-ups, in China and in the US, and was previously Vice President in the Capital Markets Group at Bankers Trust Company.</p> <p>n philanthropy, Carol is President and Co- Founder of the Rattray Kimura Foundation. She is also a member of the Board of Trustees of Bates College, The Asian Cultural Council, and the Re Foundation and a former member of the Board of The Nature Conservancy, New York State Chapter, The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and The Friends of the Museum of the Chinese University in Hong Kong. Carol is also co-chair of The Asia Foundation\'s Women\'s Empowerment Program\'s Lotus Circle Advisors and serves as a member of the Cornell University Council and The Arts and Sciences Advisory Council.</p> <p>Carol Rattray holds an MBA and MA in International Affairs from Columbia University and earned an undergraduate degree from Cornell University.</p>
Jay Walker is one of America's best-known inventors and entrepreneurs and is one of a dozen or so living inventors worldwide to hold 200 patents in multiple fields.
Walker, and a team at Walker Digital, LLC, his invention laboratory, created the central ideas behind priceline.com, the groundbreaking "name-your-own-price" company for airline tickets and hotel rooms.
Walker has also created a number of other successful businesses, including New Sub Services (now named Synapse) a company he co-founded and that revolutionized the magazine subscription industry and was recently sold to AOL Time Warner for $600 million. Walker also co-founded Target Communications, a conference and publishing company which was sold to Primedia in 2000.
Mr. Walker is currently chairman of Walker Digital, LLC, a Stamford, Conn.-based laboratory that invents entirely new ways for businesses to operate and serve consumers. Walker Digital is not a consultancy, but a privately funded active research laboratory that use long-term interdisciplinary invention teams to create solutions in the same manner and style as the original Edison laboratory. Successful inventions are licensed to industry or used as the core intellectual property of innovative startups for which the laboratory provides both personnel and funding. To date, Walker Digital has invented over 600 proprietary business methods addressing dozens of significant business problems in a wide range of industries such as travel, data security, retail, automotive, restaurants, groceries, financial services, gaming and entertainment.
Walker's inventions and innovations have been widely recognized. He has twice been recognized by the editors of TIME magazine as one of the 50 most influential business leaders in the digital age. Business Week selected Jay as one of its 25 Internet pioneers most responsible for "changing the competitive landscape of almost every industry in the world." Newsweek named him as one of three executives at the forefront of the Internet commerce revolution.
Walker and his wife have two children and live in Connecticut. He holds a B.S. degree in Industrial Relations from Cornell University.
Robert Waldman is Managing Director & Head of Corporate Bond Research at Citigroup. He has worked at Citigroup for the past 20 years. Prior to that role, he worked at Standard & Poor's. He also worked in criminal law while serving in the Marine Corps.
Robert Waldman is a graduate of CUNY City College of New York. He also holds a law degree.
Rajiv Gupta is Chairman, President and CEO of Rohm and Haas, which specializes in making cutting-edge specialty chemicals that are used in products as diverse as paint and computers. During this lecture, he shares thoughts on the importance of engineering to industry and the world.
Rajiv Gupta received his undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology and received his Masters in Operations Research & Industrial Engineering from Cornell University.