Rachel Trimarco is the Founder & CEO and Bridal Flower Divas. Trimarco planned and designed every detail of her own 300 person, lavish Hampton wedding. After receiving several astronomical quotes from florists, Rachel knew that she could find a way to avoid paying premium prices for the elegant floral décor she envisioned. She found an incredibly talented floral designer with over 25 years of experience to execute her floral scheme and used her business skills to negotiate with distributors. She ended up with couture floral arrangements for a fraction of the quotes she received from florists. After seeing her work and learning how little she paid, numerous friends and acquaintances requested her help in planning their own weddings. This gave her the inspiration for a discounted, designer bridal flower boutique. Trimarco's career has included financial sales, event planning and television production. After gaining experience in the corporate world, Trimarco decided to pursue her true passion, interior and event design. She combined her business acumen, planning and production experience, and flair for design to start Bridal Flower Divas. Rachel Tirmarco received her undergraduate degree from Cornell University.
Josh Nesbit is CEO of Medic Mobile. Inspired by volunteer village health workers in rural Malawi, Josh is firmly committed to serving a global community. He was an international health and bioethics student at Stanford and his research focused on Pediatric HIV.
Jennifer Dulski is the President and COO of Change.org Prior to Change.org, Dulski led the product management team for shopping and product ads at Google. She joined Google in 2011 when it acquired Dealmap, a company Dulski co-founded and served as its CEO from 2007 until its acquisition. Dealmap indexed over 400,000 local deals every day, totaling more than $10 million in savings available from hundreds of sources, including national brands, daily deal websites, local businesses and consumers. Dealmap has since been incorporated into Google Offers. Prior to Dealmap, Dulski served in multiple roles at Yahoo! from 1999 until 2007. Her last position was Yahoo's group vice president and general manager of local and commerce, where she led a $500 million plus portfolio of businesses and a 500 person team across the local and marketplace properties, including local, maps, shopping, travel, automotive and real estate. Additionally, Dulski founded and ran Summerbridge Pittsburgh (part of the Breakthrough Collaborative), a non-profit organization that launches high potential, underserved middle school students on the path to college and inspires high school and college students to pursue careers in education. Since 2008, she has chaired the board of the Silicon Valley site of Breakthrough. She also currently serves on the board of Little Passports, a global subscription commerce company inspiring children to learn about other countries and cultures. Jennifer Dulski received a MBA from S.C. Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University, and a Bachelor's degree in Psychology, also from Cornell University.
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.
Cheryl Francis has been the Vice Chairman of the Corporate Leadership Center since 2002 and an independent business and financial advisor since 2000.
From 1995 to 2000, Francis served as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) for R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company, a print media company. She currently serves as a member of the Board of Directors of Morningstar, Inc., HNI Corporation and Hewitt Associates.
Francis holds a bachelor's degree from Cornell University and a Master's degree in Business Administration from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business.