Session 4 Panelist Bios
Panel 1: Intersection of Opportunity: Business and the Life Sciences, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Moderator: Deborah Streeter, B.F. Failing, Sr. Professor of Personal Enterprise and Small Business Management, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Cornell University
Email: dhs4@cornell.edu
Website(s): http://deborahstreeter.com, http://eclips.cornell.edu
Deborah Streeter, Ph.D. is the Bruce F. Failing, Sr. Professor of Personal Enterprise and Small Business Management in the Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management at Cornell. Entrepreneurship and small business management are the focus of Streeter’s teaching, research, and outreach activities. Her research interests include: the use of digital media in teaching, educational models for teaching entrepreneurship, commercialization and technology transfer and gender issues in business and entrepreneurship. Streeter is a member of Entrepreneurship@Cornell, a university-wide program.
Streeter founded eClips, the world’s largest curated collection of digital video and audio clips focused on entrepreneurship, leadership and business, which received the 2010 Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching (MERLOT) Business Classic Award. The database is now available worldwide through the spinoff Prendismo (http://prendismo.com), co-founded by Streeter in 2008. She continues creating new materials for the eClips database writing and publishing multi-media cases. Streeter has received acclaim as an educator, based on her promotion of experiential learning, active learning and innovative uses of technology inside and outside the classroom. In 2007, Streeter was given the Olympus Innovator Award by the Olympus Corporation. She received the Constance E. and Alice H Cook Award in 2004, Professor of Merit Award in 2002, was named influential to a Merril Scholar in 1999, 2000 and 2003. Streeter was awarded the 2001 CALS National Food and Agricultural Sciences Excellence in College and University Teaching, and was named a Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellow in 2000 (Cornell’s most prestigious teaching award). She also received the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2000 and the Innovative Teaching Award in 1996.
Tom Fuerst '80, VP and Chief Scientific Officer, PharmAthene, Inc.
Email: thomas.fuerst@pharmathene.com
Tom Fuerst serves as Executive Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer for PharmAthene, Inc., a leading company in the area of biodefense. Prior to joining PharmAthene, Fuerst served as Director, Vaccines and Biologics, and Senior Science and Technology Advisor for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). In these positions, he led the development and acquisition of vaccines and biotherapeutic products for biodefense and other emerging public health threats, including anthrax, smallpox, botulism, and pandemic flu. During his tenure at HHS, Fuerst helped establish the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) and oversaw the planning, implementation, and monitoring of medical countermeasure development and acquisition, while managing a budget of approximately $3.0 billion. Fuerst also led a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) initiative for the Department of Defense (DoD) to develop the concept of a dedicated, flexible capability for the advanced development and manufacturing (ADM) of biological countermeasures to address national security needs. The ADM now serves as the basis for HHS and DoD strategic initiatives to enhance domestic-based development and manufacturing capabilities for biodefense and pandemic flu preparedness. Prior to joining HHS, Fuerst served as Executive Director, Corporate Development, Sanofi Pasteur, Vice President, R&D, Genelabs Technologies, and a scientific founder and Research Director, MedImmune. He also served as a senior fellow at the National Institutes of Health. Fuerst holds a B.A. in Biochemistry, University of California, Berkeley, a Ph.D. in Molecular Genetics, Cornell University, and a MBA in Science, Technology, and Innovation from George Washington University.
David Levine '88, WEILL '92, Orthopedic Surgeon, Hospital for Special Surgery
Email: levineds@hss.edu
Website: www.hss.edu
David S. Levine, MD, was born and raised on Long Island, New York. He attended Cornell University where he graduated from the College of Arts and Sciences with ‘Distinction in All Subjects’ in 1988. He attended the Weill Cornell Medical College, achieving his degree in 1992. He subsequently performed a General Surgery Internship at the University of California, San Diego Medical Center. He returned to New York City in 1993 to begin his Orthopedic Surgery Residency at Hospital for Special Surgery. Completing his residency training in 1997, he received the Jean C. McDaniel Award for ‘Excellence in Orthopedics’ from his peers. In 1997-98 he received Fellowship Training in Orthopedic Trauma and Reconstructive Surgery of the Foot and Ankle at Harborview Medical Center / University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle, Washington.
Jonathan Levine '76, Aesthetic Dentist, Jonathan B. Levine & Associates
Email: jlevine@jonathanblevine.com
Website: www.jonathanblevine.com
As a renowned dentist and prosthodontist in practice for nearly 30 years, Levine offers a comprehensive approach to dental health, intersecting beauty with function. Levine is a visionary product inventor, clinical researcher and published author. Holding three patents and 12 patents pending in oral care, Levine is responsible for modernizing the way people whiten their teeth. By combining his numerous patents with innovative dental technologies and a tenacious drive to always "make it safer, faster and more effective," Levine continues to up the ante with breakthrough professional techniques, and sleek, sophisticated at-home consumer and professional teeth whitening treatments. As a noted authority on the latest oral care and aesthetic products and techniques, Levine is frequently tapped into by the media and beauty industry to provide oral care tips, medical advice and aesthetic insight. He has appeared on several national television networks and shows, including CNN, Good Morning America, The Dr. Oz Show (as a regular expert), The View and more. As an authoritative source in smile health and beauty, he is frequently quoted in top national print publications, including InStyle, Marie Claire, Men's Health, People Stylewatch, Self, The New York Times, USA Today and more.
Panel 2: Managing Your Career: Lessons from Battle Tested Entrepreneurs, Student Agencies
Moderator: Sharon Dauk MBA '89, President, Sharon Dauk Coaching, LLC
Email: sharon@sharondauk.com
Website: www.sharondauk.com
Sharon is an executive coach, mentor and strategic adviser to successful leaders and entrepreneurs where she draws on over 20 years of business experience as an investor, board member, financial adviser
and business executive. Dauk's clients are highly successful entrepreneurs and senior executives and their teams in awide variety of industries whose companies range from early stage to Fortune 100. Prior to establishing her coaching business, her primary focus was on investing in early stage companies in a variety of industries through her investment company, Dauk/Wagner Investments, LLC. As part of these investments, Dauk often became a member of the board of directors or advisory board, and has also assumed interim senior management responsibilities including that of CEO and CFO. Prior to founding Dauk/Wagner Investments, Dauk held positions in the Corporate Finance Departments of both Morgan Stanley and Smith Barney, specializing in mergers and acquisitions and real estate investing and development.
Dauk holds an MBA from Cornell University and a BS from the University of Southern California and has completed Columbia University’s Coaching Certification Program. She is a Member of the Advisory Council of the Entrepreneurship@Cornell Program, a Trustee of Student Agencies Foundation and a Board Member of Student Agencies, Inc. Dauk has been a competitive triathlete since 1981 and until recently,
she was also an avid equestrian, achieving the top amateur level of competitive show jumping. She is a passionate cook and lives in Connecticut with her husband and business partner and their two lovable Labradors.
Matt Ackerson '09, Founder, PetoVera
Email: matt@petovera.com
Website: www.petovera.com
Randy Brandoff '98, SVP/CMO, NetJets, Inc.
Email: randy.brandoff@gmail.com
LinkedIn: Randy Brandoff
Twitter: @RandyBrandoff
Randy Brandoff is an experienced entrepreneur, operator, investor and advisor to innovative growth businesses. Brandoff is the Chief Marketing Officer of NetJets Inc, a Berkshire Hathaway company, responsible for lead generation, owner retention and the continued growth and leadership of the NetJets and Marquis Jet brands; as well as accountable for revenue, margin and market share performance. He joined Marquis Jet, the leader in private jet cards since 2001, as the Company’s founding employee and was active in every aspect of start-up and growth phases until NetJets acquisition of Marquis Jet in November, 2010. As co-creator of Marquis Jet’s marketing and business development departments, Brandoff achieved unprecedented results, including $3 Billion in historical sales, extraordinary customer retention rates and brand recognition on par with far larger and older luxury brands.
Brandoff is also a co-founder and principle of Tequila Avión, an award winning ultra-premium tequila whose incredibly smooth flavor and paradigm shattering marketing efforts - including integration into
HBO’s Entourage - has quickly made it one of the most successful and iconic tequilas in the marketplace. Additionally, Brandoff is a co-founder of Blueprint Summit (BPS). Launched in 2010, BPS is a community of current and future leaders in philanthropy hosting roundtables and events with senior business and community leaders who have made a substantial positive impact in their careers and philanthropic endeavors. Previously, Brandoff was an associate at The Argentum Group, a New York-based venture capital firm. Prior to Argentum, Brandoff was a business analyst with Deloitte Consulting
LLC.
Brandoff is on the Advisory Council for Entrepreneurship@Cornell and an active angel investor and advisor to numerous early-stage ventures. Additionally, he is on the board of Young at Heart, benefiting the Babies Heart Fund at Children’s Hospital at New York Presbyterian Hospital.
Jim Farrell '77, MEng '79, President, f'real foods, LLC
Email: jfarrell@freal.com
Founder and President of f'real foods, a marketer of milkshakes and smoothies blended by our proprietary, patented blenders in C-stores and colleges near you. Cornell has two locations on campus, one of which is in the Statler dining facility. We have 8000+ locations in all 50 states and Canada and have been growing rapidly for the last eight years. Cornell provided a great education to prepare for this venture.
Micah Rosenbloom '98, Founder/Partner, Founder Collective
Email: micah@foundercollective.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/micah-rosenbloom/0/50/a03
Twitter: @micahjay1
Website: www.micahjay.posterous.com
Rosenbloom is a serial entrepreneur who has founded three distinct technology companies. He is currently CEO of Novophage - a BU/MIT spin-out funded by Flybridge, Chevron, Founder Collective and Boston University. Previously, Rosenbloom co-founded Brontes Technologies in 2003 and served as general manager of the business until 2010 after its acquisition by 3M Corp in 2006. Brontes, a spin-out of MIT and Harvard, built the world's first hand-held digital 3D scanner for the dental industry that replaced the traditional dental impression. Previously, Rosenbloom co-founded SimplyDone Business Solutions/Handshake.com, a price quoting and online scheduling software technology focused on medium and large service businesses. He raised over $20,000,000 in financing from venture and strategic investors, including SBC Communications, and acquired a complementary software firm. Rosenbloom received his B.S. degree from Cornell's ILR School and his MBA from Harvard Business School. He is also on the Board of Advisors for Entrepreneurship@Cornell, the Cornell eLab, and is a founder/partner with the Founder Collective, a Boston/NYC based seed stage venture fund. He also actively advises a number of startups in Boston and NYC.
Dan Sommer '97, Division President, XL Marketing
Email: dansommer2010@gmail.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/danielsommer
Website: www.xlmarketing.com
Dan Sommer is an expert in digital marketing with a focus on lead generation and customer acquisition. A serial entrepreneur, Sommer founded Caridan Marketing Labs, a multi-million dollar interactive agency that he built from start up to acquisition by XL Marketing. Currently, he serves as Division President, Social Media for XL, a leading performance marketing company. Prior to founding Caridan, Sommer worked at top interactive agencies including Digitas and Sapient and either founded or played senior operating roles at several marketing product and services companies. Sommer current sits on the advisory board of eLab and is a trustee of Student Agencies Foundation, Inc.
Adam Tope '02, Associate, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP
Email: adam@adamtope.com
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/pub/adam-tope/3/137/741
Website(s): http://www.akingump.com/atope/
Adam Tope is a serial entrepreneur currently living in Washington DC. Tope has founded, nurtured and sold several companies, primarily in the technology and Internet space. Tope has also acted as an angel
investor and marketing advisor to several companies. Tope is currently an associate at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP where he advises private equity and hedge fund sponsors in the formation, structuring and operation of domestic and offshore private equity funds and hedge funds. Tope primarily represents sponsors that invest in renewable energy, real estate and emerging markets. In addition to being a lawyer, Tope also serves as a strategic advisor to Chrometa, a Cornellian-run software company that develops award-winning time-keeping software for the legal, accounting and consulting professions. Tope is also active in local DC politics and was elected as an ANC Commissioner in 2010.
In addition to his Cornell degree, Tope holds a JD cum laude from Georgetown University Law Center.
Social Entrepreneurship: Ideas Worth Spreading: From Students, Faculty and Alumni
Tanneasha Gordon '06, MPA '07, Executive Director/Co-founder, Zimbabwe Education Fund
Email: tgordon@zimbabweeducationfund.org
Website: www.zimbabweeducationfund.org
Tanneasha Gordon was born and raised in the eclectic borough of Brooklyn, NY where an appreciation for education, business and the arts were ingrained at an early age as a result of being surrounded by entrepreneurs and submerging into the arts. After high school, Gordon was accepted to and attended Cornell University for undergraduate and graduate school. After completing her graduate studies, Gordon moved to Washington DC to work for Booz Allen Hamilton, a business management consulting firm before going to work for Deloitte & Touche as a risk management consultant. Not long after moving to DC, Gordon and a colleague got together and founded ZEF – an organization dedicated to providing Zimbabwean orphans and underprivileged children the means to attain a quality education and acquire practical skills.
Zimbabwe is undergoing a devastating education crisis due to lack of resources; and was a compelling country to Gordon since the country boasts one of Africa’s highest literacy rates (~ 90%) the educational infrastructure was one of the best and most advanced educational systems in Africa, and Zimbabwe was once the breadbasket of Africa. The country’s orphan crisis solidified Gordon's decision to found ZEF.
“After learning that 25% of children in Zimbabwe were orphans and 85% live below the poverty line, I was even more compelled to get ZEF off the ground. I soon realized that if the current educational disparities weren’t addressed, there would be a generation of parentless, uneducated people who would hinder the country’s advancement and lack the ability to lead the next generation.”
Robert Lieberman '62, MS '65, President, Ithaca Filmworks & Ithaca Movies
Email: rhl10@cornell.edu
Websites: www.theycallitmyanmar.com, www.kewgardensmovie.com, www.sourcebooks.com/store/index.php?dispatch=products.view&product_id=957
Robert H. Lieberman is a best-selling novelist and film director. He is also a long time member of the Physics faculty at Cornell University. His newest film, shot clandestinely in Burma, is “They Call It Myanmar.” Among his previous films are the highly praised comedy “Green Lights”, and the documentaries “Last Stop Kew Gardens”, “Faces In A Famine” and “BoyceBall.” His novels include “The Last Boy”, the best-selling “Baby”, “Goobersville Breakdown”, “Paradise Rezoned” and “Perfect People.”
Joshua Mbanusi '12, College of Human Ecology, Cornell University
Email: jm872@cornell.edu
Mbanusi is a senior in the College of Human Ecology studying Policy Analysis and Management with a concentration on social policy. Before transferring to Cornell University, he attended Collin County Community College in Frisco, Texas for two years where I focused on government and political science. It was at this community college that Mbanusi began to better understand the importance of education on society from both an individual and policy standpoint. After his first semester at Cornell, he decided to bring his leadership skills to the classroom by becoming a teaching assistant for ‘Introduction to Policy Analysis,’ taught by Professor Rosemary Avery – the Director of the Policy Analysis and Management Department. He has continued TA’ing for her class and will do so until graduation. Additionally, during his senior year he was elected as Academic Development Chair for Black Students United. During his tenure as Academic Development Chair, he launched a campus-wide, one-to-one mentoring program called SWAG, an acronym that stands for Scholars Working Ambitiously to Graduate. SWAG is designed to combat the low graduation rate among black males at Cornell University by matching incoming black male
freshmen and transfers with and upperclassmen in their major. Along with his on-campus activities, Mbanusi has been able to strengthen his understanding of education policy through internships at the U.S. Department of Education and the New York State Senate. Upon graduation, he will be teaching high school Social Studies in Eastern North Carolina as a Teach for America corps member.
James Muna '12, College of Arts and Sciences, Cornell University
Email: jamesmuna@borawear.com
Twitter: @borawear
Website: www.borawear.com
Jennifer Wilkins, Senior Extension Associate, College of Human Ecology, Cornell University
Email: jlw15@cornell.edu
Jennifer Wilkins joined the Division of Nutritional Sciences as a Senior Extension Associate in 1993. Her work focuses on how the food and agriculture system impacts public health, environmental sustainability, and community well-being. Degrees include: BS degree in 1978 from Huxley College of Environmental Studies, Western Washington University, MS degree in 1981 from Teachers College, Columbia University, Ph.D. in 1991 from Washington State University, in Nutrition and Consumer Economics, and completion of the post-graduate dietetic residency at University of Washington Hospitals.
Shortly after joining the Cornell faculty Wilkins conceptualized and developed the first regional food guide in the United States, the Northeast Regional Food Guide. This food guide promotes health, sustainability, and local food systems. She was one of eight people selected from a national pool of over 150 for Class IV of the Kellogg Foundation Food and Society Policy Fellowship. During this 2-year fellowship (2004 to 2006) her work appeared in the media including an op-ed in the New York Times and a monthly column, The Food Citizen which has appeared monthly in the Albany Times Union since May 2006.
Wilkins directs the Cornell Farm to School Program, for which she received a Dannon Institute Award for Excellence in Community Nutrition in 2003, and the extension partnership with the New York State Farmers Market Nutrition Program. She served as president of Agriculture, Food and Human Values Society from 2003-2004, and served on the board of Directors for the Society for Nutrition Education from 1994-97, and chaired the SNE Advisory Committee for Public Policy from 2008-2010. She is the 2004 recipient of the Environmental Nutrition Award from the Hunger and Environmental Nutrition Dietetic Practice Group within the American Dietetic Association. She has served on the Chefs Collaborative Board of Overseers and is currently a Visiting Professor Fellow at the Università degli Scienze Gastronomiche (University of Gastronomic Sciences) in Pollenzo, Italy.
