Donald Katz is founder, CEO, and Chairman of the Board of Audible, Inc., the Internet's premier audio information and entertainment service. Founded in 1995 and based in Newark, NJ, Audible developed audible.com, the popular ecommerce web destination and the first system for distributing audio via the Internet for playback at or away from the PC. The Company also commercialized the first portable digital audio player in 1997. Audible (ADBL) is listed on the NASDAQ exchange and has been consistently included in the Deloitte & Touche Fast 50 and Fast 500 listings. In 2006, Audible was once again included at the top of the Fast 50 and Fast 500 lists for attaining a 1,218% five year growth rate.
Katz, winner of the 2004 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award for New Jersey, was a successful author and journalist for twenty years before founding Audible. He is the author of Home Fires: An Intimate Portrait of One Middle-Class Family in Postwar America, nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award; The Big Store: Inside the Crisis and Revolution at Sears, winner of the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize for Nonfiction; and Just Do It: The Nike Spirit in the Corporate World. Katz served as a contributing editor for Rolling Stone, Esquire, Outside, Sports Illustrated, Men's Journal, and Worth, and his writing won or was nominated for several National Magazine Awards. A two-volume collection of Katz's award-winning magazine stories, King of the Ferret Leggers and Other True Stories and Valley of the Fallen and Other Places was published in 2001.
Donald Katz graduated from New York University's honors program in English in 1974. He also attended The University of Chicago as well as The London School of Economics, from which he holds an MSc Economics.
Diane Eggert is the Executive Director of the Farmers' Market Federation of New York and has been since its inception in 1998.
Under her leadership, the organization has developed a variety of programs and services to support and advance the farmers' market industry in New York State, including a commercial general liability insurance program for markets and participating vendors, market manager training programs, new market development in partnership with community organizations, market promotional programs, and a statewide farmers' market wireless EBT program. Eggert also works with several statewide organizations, committees and local agricultural boards of directors to focus attention on direct marketing farmers and the farmers market community.
Diane Eggert received her undergraduate degree from Cornell University.
Frank O'Connell is a Senior Partner with The Parthenon Group. O'Connell has extensive operating experience running and repositioning companies, as well as leading turnaround initiatives. He most recently served as CEO and Chairman of the Board for Indian Motorcycle.
Previously, Mr. O'Connell was Chairman, President and CEO of Gibson Greetings, Inc. Mr. O'Connell has led other branded companies including Reebok, HBO Video and Skybox International. He spent the first 14 years of his career running food companies and developing brands.
During this panel discussion on the Fundamentals of Entrepreneurship & Business to an undergraduate class at Cornell University, ...
Frank O'Connell received his B.S. in Economics and his M.B.A from Cornell University.
J.C. Henry is the great grandson of Edward P. Henry, founder of EP Henry. He serves as President and Chief Executive Officer of EP Henry and has worked in various capacities for the company during the last twenty years.
J.C. Henry is a graduate of Cornell University with a BS in Engineering.
Kevin Lowe is an associate professor of business administration in the Bryan School of Business and Economics at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He teaches both undergraduate and graduate courses and his research on leadership and cross-cultural management has taken him to academic venues around the globe.
Kevin Lowe is graduate of the University of Louisville, he holds an MBA with an emphasis in investments from Stetson University and a PhD in organizational behavior from the Chapman Graduate School of Business at Florida International University.
Peter H. Hackbert is currently the William and Kay Moore Chair of Entrepreneurship and Management at Berea College. Formerly Dr. Hackbert was a visiting scholar within The Academy for Entrepreneurial Leadership on the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign campus, and previously to that the Harold Walter Siebens Endowed Chair in Entrepreneurship at Sierra Nevada College from 2001 to 2006. Prior to the appointment at Sierra Nevada College, Hackbert was a tenured professor at California State University Monterey Bay teaching marketing, e-commerce and entrepreneurship from 1996 to 2001.
As a teacher, scholar, public speaker, social and civic entrepreneur and consultant, Hackbert is a nationally recognized expert in entrepreneurship education. Building upon his research and teaching interests in career pathways, emerging growth companies in high-technology and new product/service he contributes to the infusion of the entrepreneurial mindset for students and entrepreneurs who may have little or no business or management education background.
Peter Hackbert received his undergraduate and masters degrees from the Univerisity of Cincinnati and his PhD from the University of Oklahoma.
Carl J. Schramm has been the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Kauffman Foundation since 2002. Under his leadership, the Kauffman Foundation has developed innovative programs that: expose students to the power of entrepreneurship, open new pathways to effectively move university innovations into the marketplace, create better-qualified angel investors as a critical source of seed capital for entrepreneurs, and engage economists of the highest caliber to study the impact of entrepreneurship. Schramm also has been instrumental in the development of the Foundation's international entrepreneurship fellowship program, which is funded by the UK government for aspiring British entrepreneurs.
Before joining the Foundation, Schramm enjoyed a successful career in the health care industry. He was a cofounder of HCIA, Inc. and Patient Choice Health Care, and he founded Greenspring Advisors, a consulting and merchant banking firm in the health information and risk management industries. Schramm also served as executive vice president of Fortis (now Assurant) and as president of its health insurance operations. Trained both as an economist and lawyer, Schramm began his career on the faculty of Johns Hopkins University and emerged as a respected thinker in health care finance, regulation, and insurance. He founded the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Care Finance and Management in 1980. He left Johns Hopkins to head the Health Insurance Association of America, which developed a number of industry-wide innovations in health insurance.
Carl Schramm holds a bachelor's degree from LeMoyne College, master's and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Wisconsin in Madison, and a law degree from the Georgetown University Law Center.
Bob Alter is the Chairman of Sunstone Hotel Investors, Inc, a Southern California-based Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT). Sunstone currently owns 47 hotels primarily in the upper-upscale and upscale segments operated under franchises such as Marriott, Hilton, InterContinental, Hyatt and Fairmont.
Under Alter's leadership, Sunstone has increased its market capitalization from $1.4 billion to $3.9 billion in total enterprise value and increased
Bob Alter is a graduate of Cornell University.
Timothy LaBeau is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Drug Fair Group. Drug Fair operates 50 pharmacy and general merchandise stores in northern and central New Jersey under the Drug Fair and Cost Cutters brands.
LaBeau has more than 25 years of experience in brand management and executive leadership positions with several global and national wholesale and retail companies, including senior vice president of sales, marketing and merchandising with Duane Reade; operating group president with Fleming, a full-line grocery wholesaler; president and chief executive officer with American Sales, a subsidiary of Royal Ahold; and president with ALDI.
Timothy LaBeau is a graduate of Cornell University.