Conferences

  
 
 
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Conference Pillar Sessions
 
   
Friday, January 14: 10:15am - 11:30am

Pedagogy  
Katie Petersen
Director
Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation
   
Katie Petersen joined the Kauffman Foundation in November of 2007 as the Membership Manager for the iBridge Network, a program of the Kauffman Innovation Network. In 2009, she was subsequently promoted to Director, a title she currently holds. Ms. Petersen serves as the direct liaison with iBridge Network members, overseeing all aspects of membership services from recruiting prospective members and guiding them through the application process to uploading their recent innovations and setting up meetings between collaborators.  Additionally, she is closely involved with setting the strategic direction of the iBridge Network as well as ensuring site features and functionality accurately reflect members’ demands. She has been responsible for growing the Network to more than 114 organizations and nearly 5,000 individual members who collectively have supplied more than 13,700 innovations.
 
Additionally, in her role at the Kauffman Foundation, Ms. Petersen is also charged with directing one of the Foundation’s newest projects, iStart, a community for business plan competitions. She has been involved with iStart since its inception in early 2010, helping to develop and execute the community’s business model, implement an overall marketing campaign, and handle day-to-day operations to ensure the site’s success.
  
  
Scholarship  
Maria Minniti
Professor and Bobby B. Lyle Chair of Entrepreneurship
Cox School of Business, Southern Methodist University
   
Maria Minniti is Professor and Bobby B. Lyle Chair of Entrepreneurship at the Cox School of Business at Southern Methodist University. Dr. Minniti holds a PhD in Economics from New York University. Prior to SMU, Minniti was Professor of Economics and Professor of Entrepreneurship at Babson College. She has also been a visiting professor in several universities including London Business School, Humboldt University, Copenhagen Business School and the Max Planck Institute of Economics. She has published numerous articles on entrepreneurship, economic growth and complexity theory, as well as book chapters and research monographs. Some of her articles have appeared in Economics Letters, the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, the Journal of Business Venturing, the Journal of Economic Psychology, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, the Small Business Economics Journal, and Comparative Economics Studies. Dr. Minniti is field editor of economics for the Journal of Business Venturing and associate editor for the Small Business Economics Journal and the International Small Business Journal. She is a member of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) project, the world’s largest study of entrepreneurial dynamics, and a Council Member of the Entrepreneurial Lab at the University of Bergamo & Kilometro Rosso Science Park in Italy. In 2009, Minniti received an Award for Outstanding Teaching in the MBA Program at the Cox School of Business at Southern Methodist University. Dr. Minniti is currently working on a volume on the relationship between poverty, institutions and entrepreneurship.
 
 
 
Saturday, January 15: 10:15am - 11:30am

Public Policy  
Jeffrey E. Sohl
Director, Center for Venture Research
Professor of Entrepreneurship and Decision Sciences
Whittemore School of Business and Economics
University of New Hampshire
  
Jeffrey E. Sohl is Director of the Center for Venture Research and Professor of Entrepreneurship and Decision Sciences at the Whittemore School of Business and Economics at the University of New Hampshire.  He received his Bachelor in Electrical Engineering from Villanova University and his MBA and Ph.D. in Management Science from the University of Maryland.  Prior to joining the Whittemore School he was a consultant to the Department of Energy in the area of public policy analysis.  His current research interests are in early-stage equity financing for high growth ventures.  He currently serves on the Advisory Board of the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund, the eCoast Technology Roundtable and MerchantBanc, and the Editorial Board for Venture Capital and Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice.  He also serves on the New Hampshire Governor’s Advisory Committee on Capital Formation and is on the Board of Directors for NetworkNH.  In 2006 he was awarded the national Hans Severiens Award by the Kauffman Foundation in recognition of his research on angel investing in the US.  He has served as editor for special issues of Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice and Venture Capital.  He has presented his research in academic seminars and practitioner forums in North America, Europe and Asia, and in briefings for several government agencies and scholars from North America, Europe, Scandinavia, Australia, Asia and Africa.  He has appeared on CNBC, MSNBC, National Public Radio, NHPTV’s NH Outlook, and has been quoted in Inc., Forbes, Fortune, the Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Red Herring, Newsweek, Business Week, Newsweek-Japan, Financial Times, New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times and the Financial Times-France.  He has written over 50 articles which have been published in academic journals, including Venture Capital: An International Journal of Entrepreneurial Finance, the Social Science Journal, the Journal of Forecasting, Frontiers of Entrepreneurship Research, Entrepreneurship and Regional Development, Entrepreneurship:  Theory and Practice, Entrepreneurship 2000 and the Journal of Business Venturing.
   
   
William J. Dennis, Jr.
Senior Research Fellow
NFIB Research Foundation
Washington, D.C.  
   
William J. (Denny) Dennis, Jr. has been the senior research fellow at National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) for over 30 years. He has served as president of the International Council for Small Business. Besides managing the research program of The NFIB Research Foundation, his responsibilities include long-term policy planning, policy conferences and annual surveys. He has testified numerous times before congressional committees regarding key small-business issues such as, availability of credit and health care. He is a Justin G. Longenecker Fellow of the United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship (USASBE), a Wilford L. White Fellow of the International Council for Small Business (ICSB) and the winner of the Academy of Management's Advocate Award in the Entrepreneurship Division. Denny has also been honored by the Small Business Administration with the Special Advocacy Award. The award recognized him as "one of small business' most committed advocates, with considerable expertise in small business research."
   
   
Patricia Greene
President’s Distinguished Chair in Entrepreneurship
Babson College
  
Patricia G. Greene is a professor at Babson College where she served as Provost and Dean of the Undergraduate School.  Earlier she held the Kauffman/Missouri Chair in Entrepreneurial Leadership at the University of Missouri – Kansas City and the NJ Chair of Small Business and Entrepreneurship at Rutgers University.  Dr. Greene earned a Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin, an MBA from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and a BS from the Pennsylvania State University.  She was a founding member of the Rutgers Center for Entrepreneurial Management and the coordinator of the Rutgers Entrepreneurship Curriculum.  At UMKC she helped found KC SourceLink, the Entrepreneurial Growth Resource Center (EGRC), the Business and Information Development Group (BRIDG), and the Entrepreneurial Effect.  Her current Babson project is to lead the curriculum design team for the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businessesinitiative. Dr. Greene’s research includes the edited volumes Entrepreneurship Education (with M. Rice) and the forthcoming University Based Entrepreneurship Ecosystems: Global Practices (with M. Fetters, M. Rice, & J. Butler).   Her work has been published in numerous national and international academic journals. She is a founding member of the Diana Project, a research group focusing on women and the venture capital industry. In 2007, the Diana Project was awarded the SFS-NUTEK Award, given to recognize those who produce scientific work of outstanding quality and importance.  Diana Project books include International Women’s Entrepreneurship, Women and Entrepreneurship, and Clearing the Hurdles: Women Building High Growth Businesses.
 
Dr. Greene completed terms on the National Science Foundation SBIR/STTR Advisory Committee and as co-chair of  AACSB’s Entrepreneurship Affinity Group.  She nowserves on the national advisory board for the SBA’s Small Business Development Centers, is Chair-Elect for the Center for Women’s Business Research and is special academic advisor to the Guardian Life Small Business Research Institute.
  
  
Outreach  
Dorothy Perrin Moore
Emeritus Professor of Business Administration
The Citadel School of Business
  
At the Citadel, she held the title of Distinguished Professor of Entrepreneurship.  She is the author of Careerpreneurs-Lessons from Leading Women Entrepreneurs on Building A Career Without Boundaries, which received the ForeWord Magazine Book-of-the-Year Gold Award in the field of Business.  She is the coauthor of Women Entrepreneurs--Moving Beyond the Glass Ceiling, now in its seventh printing.   A former entrepreneur, she received her Ph.D. in Management, Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management from the Darla Moore School of Business, University of South Carolina. She is a recipient of the Academy of Management, Women in Management Division’s Sage Janet Chusmir Service Award and the   Division’s Sage Scholarship Award; a Justin G. Longenecker Fellow in the United States Association of Small Business and Entrepreneurship, a Small Business Administration Women in Business Advocate for South Carolina. Her most recent book, coauthored, Island in the Storm, Sullivan’s Island and Hurricane Hugo, earned the Bronze Award in the 2006 ForeWord Magazine Book-of-the-Year awards.  Her chapter on Women as Entrepreneurs and Small Business Owners, has just been published by Sage Publications in the volume on Gender and Women’s Leadership.  Presently Dr. Moore is a job coach at the Center for Women where she also hosts an on-line Blog for women business owners at http://lwentrepreneurs.blogspot.com and writes a monthly professional advancement column for the Moxie section of the Post & Courier.
   
   
Jennet Alterman
Executive Director
Center for Women
 
Jennet Robinson Alterman, a native of Charleston, is the Executive Director of the Center for Women. Ms. Alterman has worked in television broadcasting, state and federal government and the non-profit sector. She served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Afghanistan, Peace Corps Country Director in Swaziland and the Interagency Coordinator for Peace Corps worldwide. In her tenure on Peace Corps, she worked on projects in over 40 countries. She was responsible for the development and ongoing support of Peace Corps worldwide programs including: Micro-Enterprise Development, Women in Development and Environmental Education. In 2001 she accepted the position with the Center for Women, a women’s development center established in 1990. The Center for women conducted 108 programs in 2009 and reached over 6000 women in the Lowcountry. In 2002 the Center established the Entrepreneurial Woman Series to provide technical assistance and support to women entrepreneurs and business owners. More than 5000 women have participated in the series. Under her leadership, the Center received numerous grants and awards, including the Award for Excellence in Non-Profit Management from the S.C. Association of Non-Profit Organizations in 2005, Oprah’s Angel Network Grant from Oprah Winfrey in 2006, Family Circle Cup Tennis Tournament official charity of choice in 2009, the Charleston Metro Chamber of Commerce 1773 award for the Public/Non-Profit Sector and People Against Rape’s Outstanding Victim Service Program in 2009. Ms. Alterman also serves as the Vice President of the Spaulding Paolozzi Foundation Board of Directors, the Board of the Trident Urban League, the Trident Workforce Investment Board, Charleston County Housing Authority, the Advisory Council of Charleston Area Therapeutic Riding, the Advisory Board of the Junior League and the Advisory Council of the Lowcountry Graduate Center. She holds an Honorary Doctorate of Human Letters given by the College of Charleston in 2008.