Not signed in (Sign In)

HESA Harvard Extension Student Association: HESA Spring Welcome Back Social & The Young Millionaire CEOs | Emerging Leaders Panel

Bottom of Page

1 to 23 of 23

  1.  
  1.  

    ******Special Event Announcement*****

    The HESA Spring Welcome Back Social & The Young Millionaire CEOs | Emerging Leaders Panel

    Date: February 12, 2010
    Time: 6:00pm -10:00pm
    Location: Northwest Science Building, Lower Level, 52 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA
    Registration: http://hesa.dce.harvard.edu/?p=2217
    Prize: The first 100 students who register will have a chance to win a free signed copy of a panel member's book.

    Event Details:

    HESA joined forces with the Harvard Extension Service and Leadership Society (HESLS) to plan the Spring Welcome Back Social & Emerging Leaders Panel, which will feature three dynamic speakers along with an evening of socializing, networking, and food/refreshments. The speakers will represent an “emerging leaders” panel that will inspire and motivate students with entrepreneurial vision and insights in creating success regardless of age. This is a different twist from the traditional line-up of speakers and will give voice to young successful business leaders for the next generation. The panel will also address the combination of business success with social entrepreneurship and community service. This will be an all-encompassing presentation for those wanting to start a business or a non-profit, for those wanting to rise to the top of the corporate ladder, or for those wanting to simply follow and achieve their dream. This is guaranteed to be a "must attend" event for the semester.

    The speakers will include:

    * Dr. Randal Pinkett (age 38), CEO of BCT Partners, a multi-million dollar management, technology and policy consulting firm that works with corporations, government agencies, philanthropic and nonprofit organizations. Dr. Pinkett is also the author of Campus CEO, the highly acclaimed book that shows students how to be successful entrepreneurs before they leave college. Dr. Pinkett is also the winner of NBC’s Apprentice Season 4 with Donald Trump. He has overseen and managed a $100 million dollar real estate construction project for the Trump organization. Dr. Pinkett has also done a considerable amount of work on behalf of under-served communities, low-income communities, and communities of color. He is a spokesperson for Autism Speaks, the New Jersey Reads and Junior Achievement of New York. He is a holder of 5 academic degrees – BA from Rutgers, MS from Oxford University (Rhodes Scholar), MS from MIT, MBA from Sloan-MIT, and PhD from MIT.

    * Ephren Taylor (age 27) is currently the CEO of two publicly traded companies, one of which, City Capital Corporation, is recognized by the Wall Street Journal as one of the “Top 100 Socially Conscious Corporations in the United
    States. Named by The Michigan Chronicle as one of 2007’s ten people making a global difference, Mr. Taylor is the youngest African-American CEO of any publicly traded company in United States history. Taylor started his first
    business venture at age 12, when he began making video games. By age 17, he built a multi-million dollar technology company, GoFerretGo.com. In addition, through his action on green energy and philanthropy, Taylor is leading a new wave of CEO’s focusing on corporate social responsibility. He appears regularly on FOX News, CNBC, and has been featured on network shows such as ABC’s 20/20, Big Idea with Donnie Deutsch and Montel Williams show. He also has regular appearances in print and radio media including PBS, Black Enterprise, and the Miami Herald. He is also the author of “Creating Success from the Inside Out” a Wallstreet journal bestseller (published by Wiley).

    * Adam Stewart (age 29), CEO of Sandals Resorts International, a multi-billion dollar empire of first-class luxurious all-inclusive resorts in the Caribbean (rated among the best world-wide), with approx. 10,000 employees. Adam Stewart is one of the youngest chief executives of a major company in the world. He started working in the hotel business at age 16 as a management trainee, learning all aspects of the business and gaining valuable experience in the important areas of Concierge, Entertainment, Marketing and Sales. He was promoted to the position of CEO at age 25. In addition, Mr. Stewart established "The Sandals Foundation", a non-profit organization that aims to tackle a myriad of issues affecting the Caribbean under three broad headings: community, education and environment. He is the holder of a BS degree in Hospitality Management from Florida International University.

    The panel will be moderated by:

    * Sal V. Perisano (age 59), Chairman and CEO of iParty. Mr. Perisano also served as Chairman of the Board and President of The Big Party Corporation from 1992 to 1998, and continued serving as a director until 2000. He co-founded Videosmith, which became a leading video retailer in the Boston area, which in 1989, was sold to a publicly traded company called Xtravision PLC, which owned 250 stores throughout the U.K. and Ireland. Mr. Perisano stayed on as a director and was later named Chief Executive Officer of the parent company, which was subsequently acquired by Blockbuster Video. Mr. Perisano holds a bachelor’s degree from Boston College and a Master’s Degree in Liberal Arts from Harvard University Extension School.

    Due to limited seating, please register early or before February 11th. For more information and to register now, visit http://hesa.dce.harvard.edu/?p=2217. There will be free book give-aways to students from a pool of the first 100 registrants. Winners must be present to collect prize. We will also have book sales and book signings!

    To view the flyer, see http://hesa.dce.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/HESA_Spring-Social_Flyer_Final_Internal.pdf

    Event sponsors include: The Harvard Extension Service & Leadership Society (HESLS), The Boston Learning Center, The Charles Hamilton Institute For Race & Justice at Harvard Law School, and Iuventum.

  2.  
    Posted By: Hermes

    The speakers will represent an “emerging leaders” panel that will inspire and motivate students with entrepreneurial vision and insights in creating success regardless of age. This is a different twist from the traditional line-up of speakers and will give voice to young successful business leaders for the next generation.

    Sounds like an awesome event. Although, I don't get the theme choice. It is called 'Young Millionaire CEOs.' and is sponsored by the HES, even though the HES is geared toward the older student. Moderated by a 59 year old (the only one that went to the HES). The speakers are 27, 29 and 38 (all non-Harvard/non-HES). The 'regardless of age' refers to youthful entrepreneurs, not middle age entrepreneurs who started late and found success. OK. Just think Harvard College students would find this more directly inspiring.

    Posted By: Hermes

    He is a holder of 5 academic degrees – BA from Rutgers, MS from Oxford University (Rhodes Scholar), MS from MIT, MBA from Sloan-MIT, and PhD from MIT.

    Damn. Five degrees.

  3.  
    Posted By: Hermes

    Sal V. Perisano (age 59), Chairman and CEO of iParty. Mr. Perisano also served as Chairman of the Board and President of The Big Party Corporation from 1992 to 1998, and continued serving as a director until 2000. He co-founded Videosmith, which became a leading video retailer in the Boston area, which in 1989, was sold to a publicly traded company called Xtravision PLC, which owned 250 stores throughout the U.K. and Ireland. Mr. Perisano stayed on as a director and was later named Chief Executive Officer of the parent company, which was subsequently acquired by Blockbuster Video. Mr. Perisano holds a bachelor’s degree from Boston College and a Master’s Degree in Liberal Arts from Harvard University Extension School.

    What year did Sal V. Perisano obtain his HES Masters? Before or after his business world success? In the 80s or after 2000? That would be interesting to know.

  4.  

    Answered my own question. In 1987. He was 36 years old. Awesome!

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Extension_School

    Sal Perisano, ALM ’87 — Chairman and CEO, iParty

    http://people.forbes.com/profile/sal-v-perisano/45391

    Now that is an interesting story! Maybe I'll attend just to hear old Sal's story. Even though I do not want to go into the corporate world, I'd like to hear him talk about how his HES Masters in his 30s effected his subsequent life and career.

  5.  
    Posted By: Hermes

    He is a holder of 5 academic degrees – BA from Rutgers, MS from Oxford University (Rhodes Scholar), MS from MIT, MBA from Sloan-MIT, and PhD from MIT.

    Well, I guess he was "old" by the time he got done with all that there learning.

  6.  
    Posted By: ExpConsciousness
    Posted By: Hermes

    The speakers will represent an “emerging leaders” panel that will inspire and motivate students with entrepreneurial vision and insights in creating success regardless of age. This is a different twist from the traditional line-up of speakers and will give voice to young successful business leaders for the next generation.

    Sounds like an awesome event. Although, I don't get the theme choice. It is called 'Young Millionaire CEOs.' and is sponsored by the HES, even though the HES is geared toward the older student. Moderated by a 59 year old (the only one that went to the HES). The speakers are 27, 29 and 38 (all non-Harvard/non-HES). The 'regardless of age' refers to youthful entrepreneurs, not middle age entrepreneurs who started late and found success. OK. Just think Harvard College students would find this more directly inspiring.

    Posted By: Hermes

    He is a holder of 5 academic degrees – BA from Rutgers, MS from Oxford University (Rhodes Scholar), MS from MIT, MBA from Sloan-MIT, and PhD from MIT.

    Damn. Five degrees.

    I will take a stab at clarifying the connection and value of the theme to HES.

    The theme is centered on the idea that if these persons in their mid or late 20's or 30's can achieve becoming multi-millionaires and billionaires, then whatever age we are, we can be inspired to achieve that too. The idea is really centered on the "emerging leaders" component. We did invite a number of other kinds of young emerging leaders (including politicians and academicians, etc, and including also a number of women in different fields) but we were able to successfully negotiate on this time-table the above speakers for this event. As such, the event evolved around the young CEO business leader angle and so we went with it as an innovative approach to a HESA social with a unique value-added/enrichment component. By the way, these are very high profile speakers in huge demand, (some of which are national business celebrities and fit a very short list of very successful emerging leaders) and as such they usually charge thousands of dollars (e.g. around 10k to 15K) in speaking fees which we were able to over many weeks negotiate them waiving for us...thats upwards of around $40,000 worth of value being brought to the Extension school via this event. The other kinds of speakers have agreed to come at a later time when their schedule is freer and so we will probably, depending on how things go, do another one as part of a series before the year is out.

    One point I want to make also is that the idea of success is not only just centered on financial accomplishment....it is whatever your dreams are. These speakers will be able to communicate that you are not encumbered by your age or your background or your culture or your race or your family's economic status or anything else that characterizes your demographic or where you are in life. For example, one speaker, Ephren Taylor, taught himself how to program 3-dimensional video games at age 12 because his parents could not afford to buy him any. So he eventually had his neighbors wanting to buy them because they were better than the stuff on the market. Eventually he started a company and sold it for $3.4 million while still in high school. He later started two other companies which again he sold for millions by age 17 and later took two more companies public on Wallstreet all before the age of 25, with no Ivey league education, no huge family resources, etc. How was he able to do this? I think the lessons there apply to all whether, in their 20's, 30's, or 40's or 50's etc. Each speaker represents a different angle and different life story on how they achieved success. Of course, Randal Pinkett went and got 5 degrees, and became the "Apprentice" with Donald Trump but yet he started 3 successful companies while he was still in the process of attaining these degrees as a student, and not only achieved success after he graduated. In his book "Campus CEO", he shows exactly how you can use campus networks and resources to start a business, and make the most of every opportunity and connection that you can, and that you don't have to wait until you graduate. This is a non-traditional approach and fits well with our non-traditional students. There is a lot to learn there. Also, Adam Stewart represents the angle of a family business succession but also the angle for those who want to climb to the top of a corporation as opposed to start their own business, as he worked from age 16 to be promoted to CEO at age 25 though of a privately-owned business. There are certain challenges that a 25 year old CEO will have in running a multi-billion empire like Sandals Resorts and for the past 4 years he has taken the company to new heights in a tough economic climate. He also represents a global company perspective, particularly relevant to international students.

    Also, I want to point out that the Extension School has tons of 20 somethings and 30 somethings. It is a mistaken notion that HES is comprised mostly of 50 somethings or 60 somethings, or even mainly 40 somethings. HES is all kinds of non-traditional students including students like Amit Chaterjeee, the founder and first president of HESA, who was home-schooled and started attending HES at age 16, as cited by Dean Shinagel in his book. The demographics of HES has been changing more and more in the direction of students who see the ALB degree as a smarter alternative to the College. And moreover, many of the ALM students are those who see a Harvard graduate degree as a smarter alternative to a traditional MBA, MA, or whatever, many of whom are in their late 20's or in their 30's. I believe the average age at Extension is about 36. The point here is that as a non-traditional student, regardless of age, you can go and achieve your dream now. You don't have to wait for another 10, 20, 30 years to do it. If these guys can do it, then anyone can be inspired to achieve greatness, whatever that means to each person.

    Sal Perisano, represents the insights of one generation of successful entrepreneurs who can distill the insights from this younger panel and from his own life in terms of how and what it takes to be an astounding success regardless of age, whether young or old. He also happens to be an Extension Alum and is an excellent anchor to the event. As a very successful entrepreneur and CEO of a publicly traded company, iParty, worth more than $80 million as of 2008, he will be able to give a seasoned perspective as he guides the emerging leaders panel and the audience in this event.

    Having said that, we have received feedback that other students from HBS, HLS, HKS, and other Graduate schools within Harvard want to come. In anticipation of this, we have opened up the event but for a higher admissions price of $10 for other Harvard students while HES students pay only $5. This will be our first HESA social in HESA history, I believe, that will have a multi-school/inter-school component to it where HES students will be able to network and socialize with not only primarily other HES students but also with a number of other Harvard students. Who would have "thunk it":).... HES students have indicated an interest in feeling more invited to other Harvard mixers, and here other Harvard students now want to come to our social mixers/events. I have received feedback from HBS professors that this is a first at Havard, having 3 young millionaires of this caliber in an emerging leaders panel. In fact the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute at Harvard Law School, headed up by world-renown HLS professor Charles Ogletree, have indicated that they would like to join in as a sponsor of the event due to the uniqueness of it, and lend their weight and Harvard credibility behind because they support what we are doing. This attention from Harvard is huge and continues to increase our inter-school profile as I promised that I would try to do in the campaign. There is one other point here, the websites of both Randal and Ephren, who have a national audience, are now linked to the HESA website, meaning thereby that countless numbers of a national audience will now be exposed to the HESA website and to HESA. The spillover effects for enhanced credibility and brand power for HESA are potentially enormous.

    Lastly, I would like to state that HES is not bound nor predisposed, nor should it be, to only invite Harvard/HES alums to speak. There are many speakers that have much to add to our lives without having been an Alum. We did not need to have an Extension Alum at this event, though that is always a nice special touch if possible, but we were able to secure Sal, and he was actually a huge success by age 38 and should be an added inspiration to us all.

  7.  

    Excellent response, Hermes. "Young Millionaires." Subtitle: "Success At Any Age."
    Kudos on increasing our inter-school profile and increasing awareness of our school nationally. That only helps our cause.

    I do think this is overstated:

    Posted By: Hermes

    The demographics of HES has been changing more and more in the direction of students who see the ALB degree as a smarter alternative to the College. And moreover, many of the ALM students are those who see a Harvard graduate degree as a smarter alternative to a traditional MBA, MA, or whatever, many of whom are in their late 20's or in their 30's.

    Really? HES is superior to Harvard College? No one is accepted to HC and opts for HES instead. No one at HES had a Harvard College acceptance offer to turn down.

    • CommentAuthorathena
    • CommentTimeFeb 8th 2010
     

    I think you misunderstood what Hermes meant. Or maybe I'm misunderstanding him myself.
    But I think he means that a lot of people may be choosing HES over a traditional program because of the flexibility and lower costs.
    HIs "smarter alternative" does not concern the degree of quality between the schools, it's more related to how the dif. schools are fitting into the lives of students. e.g. Now with the economy being unstable, a lot of hs grads may be going into the work force first, and then opt for HES b/c it's more flexible for work schedules,

    • CommentAuthorathena
    • CommentTimeFeb 8th 2010
     

    going through the Common App and applying to traditional schools is more of a hassle, and costs more money than just signing up for a course at HES and immediately plunging into class.

  10.  
    Posted By: athena

    I think you misunderstood what Hermes meant. Or maybe I'm misunderstanding him myself.
    But I think he means that a lot of people may be choosing HES over a traditional program

    Perhaps he meant to write "students who see the ALB degree as a smarter alternative to a traditional college degree program" and not "to the College" capital 'C'.

    Posted By: athena

    a lot of hs grads may be going into the work force first, and then opt for HES b/c it's more flexible for work schedules

    When job markets get tighter, applications to graduate schools always goes up. As does the number of high school grads who join the military and apply to cheaper state schools and community colleges. Perhaps the number of high school graduates who enter the work force (if they can find work at all) and delay school rises, as well. I don't know.

    • CommentAuthorAnonymous
    • CommentTimeFeb 9th 2010
     

    There will be no tickets sold at the door?

  12.  

    Update from HESA website:
    ****************************************************************************************************************************
    Wednesday, February 10, 2010 – 9:00 AM EST
    Notice: Premium seating is no longer available for the panel portion of the event (for 2hrs). You may still register for overflow seating in an adjacent conference room with live video-feed projection (up to an additional 100 people). On the day of the event, if there are no-shows, overflow registrants may be upgraded to premium seating in the order of registration. However, the social mixer phases of the event (for 2hrs) will be available to all registrants. See HESA website for agenda.

    *******************************************************************************************************************************
    We will announce if tickets will be sold at the door once we know if the overflow seating will be sold out or not.

    As of now, we already have over 270 paid and registered with more to come with an additional 30 people (i.e. sponsors, VIPs, volunteers, etc) not included in this count. So if you still plan to come, please register now before all seats are sold out.

    Thanks,

    Andre

  13.  

    Any plan to stream this at a later date from the Centennial (or any Harvard) site or, with all the high-profile speakers, are there issues with documenting and releasing this event?

    • CommentAuthorguydlc
    • CommentTimeFeb 12th 2010
     
    Posted By: ExpConsciousness

    Any plan to stream this at a later date from the Centennial (or any Harvard) site or, with all the high-profile speakers, are there issues with documenting and releasing this event?

    Were working on this, but will need some time to work out the kinks. Check the event post on the HESA site - we'll keep the status updated there. Thanks for your interest, we hope to bring this and future events to the web so that everyone can see them, regardless of location.

    • CommentAuthorguydlc
    • CommentTimeFeb 12th 2010
     

    Another FYI - This event is completely sold out. Thanks to all who registered. If anyone has questions, please post them in the HESA site so that we are sure to see them. Thanks.

    • CommentAuthorRon Newman
    • CommentTimeFeb 12th 2010
     

    what do you mean by 'post them in the HESA site' ?

  17.  

    Their 'Comments' section under each article: http://hesa.dce.harvard.edu/?p=2217#comments

    • CommentAuthorguydlc
    • CommentTimeFeb 13th 2010
     
    Posted By: ExpConsciousness

    Their 'Comments' section under each article:http://hesa.dce.harvard.edu/?p=2217#comments

    Sorry that I didn't clarify, but Exp hit the nail on the head. There are several admins who are notified anytime a comment is posted, so that way someone can respond.

  19.  

    Anyone go to this? Any reports? I couldn't make it, so I'm curious how it went.

    • CommentAuthorShiloh
    • CommentTimeFeb 17th 2010
     

    I did. It was awesome! Everyone I spoke to was absolutely excited...there was so much positive energy. There were tons of people in attendance. I've never seen so many people at any event on campus. People stayed way past the closing for book signings, etc. It was a great opportunity to hear the speakers and to meet other students. The whole experience was amazing and is probably the best event I've ever attended since being here.

    • CommentAuthorkvedaa
    • CommentTimeFeb 17th 2010
     
    Posted By: Shiloh

    There were tons of people in attendance.

    If these people are like me (>250lbs) then it would really only take sixteen people to reach multiple tons.

    :)

    •  
      CommentAuthorLampoon
    • CommentTimeFeb 17th 2010
     

    :D

  23.  

1 to 23 of 23

  1.  

This site is not affiliated in any way with Harvard University or the Harvard University Extension School, the Harvard University Summer School, or the Harvard University Faculty of Arts and Sciences Division of Continuing Education.