Dr. Ted Zoller
Director of the Centre for Entrepreneurial Studies and Associate Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship University of North Carolina Chapel Hill
A senior fellow for the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, Ted Zoller performs research and advises Foundation leaders on entrepreneurship strategies and programs. Zoller was director of the Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at the Kenan-Flagler school of business at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the founding instructor of UNC’s “Launching the Venture” course, which has increased the number of companies to spin-off from the university. Zoller is a former associate dean and a high-tech entrepreneur.
Dr. Mike Goldsby
Director of the Entrepreneurship Centre at Ball State University and Stoops Distinguished Professor of Entrepreneurship
Ball State University
Michael G. Goldsby, PhD is the Stoops Distinguished Professor of Entrepreneurship and executive director of the Entrepreneurship Center in the Miller College of Business at Ball State University. He teaches creativity, innovation, and design in the University’s nationally ranked undergraduate and graduate programs in entrepreneurship. Ball State University’s Entrepreneurship Program has continually earned national rankings including: Top 20 in Business Week, Success, and Entrepreneur magazines; and Top 10 in U.S. News & World Report’s elite ranking. Goldsby has produced 30 refereed journal articles. He is also the co-author of Innovation Acceleration (Prentice Hall).
Jon French
Director of Marketing and Events
Next 36
Jon is responsible for the Next 36’s program marketing, media and communications, with an emphasis on recruiting the country’s top young innovators and leaders. Jon manages relationships with prospective applicants, student organizations, national partners, university representatives and members of the start-up community.
The Next 36 is a resource-rich program designed to nurture the entrepreneurial promise of 36 undergraduates with extraordinary potential each year. It was founded by a small group of entrepreneurs, business leaders and academics in response to Canada’s need for more high-impact entrepreneurs, and is championed by Founding Patrons W. Galen Weston, Paul Desmarais, Sr. and Jimmy Pattison. For nine months, 36 young entrepreneurs are mentored by Canada’s top business leaders, taught by some of the world’s top business faculty, and work to earn funding from top venture capitalists.
Dr. Francine Schlosser
Associate Professor
Odette School of Business
Director (Business) Centre for Enterprise and Law
University of Windsor
Dr. Francine Schlosser researches factors that affect the career transition and employment relationships of aging workers, volunteers, and entrepreneurs and has published 33 journal articles, chapters and cases and 50 conference presentations. She co-founded the Centre for Enterprise and Law (CEL) with Prof Myra Tawfik, the only multi-disciplinary experiential learning outreach program in Canada in which business and law students work in teams with innovative faculty and student inventors, and local entrepreneurs. Her collaboration with Professor Tawfik has attracted more than $1.6 million funding. She has been honored to accept multiple research and teaching awards including the most innovative course in entrepreneurial education from the Canadian Council of Small Business and Entrepreneurship (CCSBE 2010, with Prof. Tawfik). She was the Co-Chair of the CCSBE 2011 annual conference sponsored by the Odette School of Business in Windsor and is currently VP Programs for CCSBE and Associate Editor for Journal of Small Business and Entrepreneurship.
David Baxter
President and Co-Founder
Fiddlehead Technologies
David Baxter is the guy who’s always looking around the innovation curve to support the development of new projects. For the past year he’s applied that knowledge to Fiddlehead Technology, a start-up with co-founder Shawn Carver that provides outside-in data-driven decision support for the food and beverage industry. He was most recently VP Innovation at T4G where he supported the development of Maritime start-ups, such as MedRunner, Tribenomics and xiplinx. He is the former chair and current board member of PropelICT, a pay it forward mentoring initiative empowering Launch36, the Maritimes’ ICT accelerator program. David is always up for change-the-world conversation especially when it comes with a running invite.
Dr. Mary Kilfoil
Academic Lead
The Starting Lean Initiative
a project of the Norman Newman Centre for Entrepreneurship
Mary Kilfoil led the team that brought the Starting Lean Course to Dalhousie University in the Fall of 2012. This innovative course provides an experiential approach to entrepreneurship teaching by combining Lean Launchpad methodologies, a flipped classroom, and accomplished mentors – and was listed in Academia’s Top 10 courses in Canada 2013. More recently, she has led the launch of a campus-wide Innovation course as part of Dal Vision 20/20 based on Design Thinking principles. Mary has more than 20 years experience in the private sector has authored several reports and publications in the fields of innovation, entrepreneurship, and economic policy.
