Kevin McGovern is the Chairman and CEO of McGovern Capital LLC, which provides Intellectual Property Rights Strategy, and originates, structures and implements capital formation, joint ventures and business alliances. In addition, he is also the principal of McGovern & Associates, which specializes in corporate law and intellectual property strategy with an emphasis on emerging businesses, mergers and acquisitions, securities, patent enforcement, corporate and partnership joint ventures, capital formation and R&D financing. Kevin McGovern received his undergraduate degree from Cornell University and his law degree from St. John's University School of Law. He has also studied at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Jules Kroll is the Founder of Kroll, Inc., which was sold to Marsh & McLellan in 2004. Kroll became well known to Wall Street due to his investigative due dilligence work in the financial sector. In 2008, he founded Kroll Bond Rating Agency and K2Global Consulting with his son, Jeremy. Kroll was named "Cornell Entrepreneur of the Year" in 2003. Jules Kroll is a graduate of Cornell University.
Joseph Ziskin joined IBM Corporate Strategy at the end of 2006. His responsibilities include developing strategies for new business opportunities/business models and improving operations focusing on service delivery, service platforms, and ecosystems. He works across IBM to drive strategy efforts in the areas of Cloud Computing Business Models, Networks, and Mobility/Wireless. Joseph Ziskin is a graduate of Cornell University.
Micah Rosenbloom is the Chief Operating Officer of Brontes Technologies, leading both the internal operations and business development functions for the company. Prior to Brontes, Rosenbloom co-founded SimplyDone Business Solutions, an enterprise software and consulting firm that sold a unique CRM application to large service-based franchise businesses. As President of SimplyDone, Rosenbloom raised over $20,000,000 in financing from venture and strategic investors, negotiated a strategic partnership with SBC Communications, and acquired a complementary software firm. Rosenbloom has also worked as a Product Manager for Kaplan Inc. where he created the technology roadmap for one of the company's newest business units. Rosenbloom's interview is one of a four-part interview series of interview with "dot com" entrepreneurs (Micah Rosenbloom, Harold Fox, Zach Thompson, and Tai Nguyen). It documents an Internet start-up, Handshake.com, which was founded in 1999 and provided an Internet service to connect consumers to local merchants. Rosenbloom received his B.S. degree from Cornell University and his MBA from Harvard Business School.
Ratan Tata is the chairman of Tata Sons, the holding company of the Tata Group, India's largest and most successful business conglomerate. Under Tata's leadership, total revenues of the Tata Group have increased more than sixfold, to over $22 billion this year(2006).
The Tata Group now has over 90 operating companies, employing about 220,000 people in seven business sectors. It operates in more than 40 countries and exports to 140. Some of its biggest holdings are Tata Steel, Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces, India's pre-eminent hotel chain, and Tata Motors, an automobile manufacturer whose products include the first car designed in India. The family business began as a textile mill, launched under British colonial rule in 1860 by Tata's great-grandfather. Tata joined the Tata steel division in 1962 and became chairman of the conglomerate in 1991.
Tata earned a bachelor of architecture degree at Cornell University in 1962 and completed the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School in 1974-75.
For more than 30 years, Howard Glickberg has led Fairway Market in achieving the high standard of excellence established when his grandfather founded the market before World War II. Howard came back to the family business in 1974 when it was clear that Fairway was suffering under absentee management.
Howard and his dedicated team spent the next 20 years adding specialty food items, expanding the space, and building Fairway Market into a New York City icon.
He has been named Entrepreneur of the Year from Deloitte & Touche and Business of the Year by the Westside Chamber of Commerce. With his partners, he was named to the Top 50 Influential Businessmen in NYC by Crain's in 1997.
Michael Simmons is the author of the bestselling book,The Student Success Manifesto: How to Create a Life of Passion, Purpose, and Prosperity.
Simmons, along with wife Sheena Lindahl, founded Extreme Entrepreneurship Education, LLC, while attending NYU in 2003. The pair have been named among BusinessWeek's "Best Entrepreneurs Under 25" in 2006. In addition, Simmons and Lindahl are the co-founders of Extreme Entrepreneurship Tour (EET), a collegiate tour bringing America's top young enterpreneurs to college campuses for a half-day conference to spread the entrepreneurial mindset. Started in fall 2006, the tour has visited over 60 schools nation-wide and has received the Innovation Award from the National Association of Development Organizations and the Program of the Year award from Northern Michigan University.
Michael Simmons is a graduate of the Stern School of Business at New York University.
William Weldon is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Johnson & Johnson and is the sixth Chairman in Johnson & Johnson's over one-hundred year history.
Weldon joined J&J as a sales representative for the McNeil Pharameutical division in 1971 and eventually became the head of J&J's Ethicon Endo-Surgery business in 1992. He became the head of J&J's pharmaceutical operations in 1998 and then became J&J's CEO in 2002. As CEO, Weldon engineered some of the largest acquisitions in J&J's history including the purchase of ALZA and Pfizer's consumer-health product line.
William Weldon received a BA in Biology from Quinnipiac University.
Dana Lampert is a Cornell University student and co-founder of Wiggio.com. Wiggio.com is a free, online toolkit that makes it easy for students to work in groups. It offers simple functionalities, such as a shared calendar to coordinate meetings, the ability to send mass text messages, a shared document folder, instant polling capabilities, and free conference calls.
Dana Lampert expects to receive his undergraduate degree from Cornell Univesity in 2008.