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.
Irene Rosenfeld is CEO of Kraft Foods Inc., having been appointed June 26, 2006.
Rosenfeld had spent more than 20 years with Kraft and General Foods before joining Frito-Lay, a division of PepsiCo, in 1994, and rejoining Kraft as president of Kraft Canada in 2000. Rosenfeld left Kraft to become CEO of Frito-Lay in 2004 before returning to Kraft in June 2006.
Rosenfeld is a food industry veteran. She began her career with General Foods in 1981 as Associate Market Research Manager. She spent more than 20 years with Kraft. During that time, she advanced in a variety of leadership roles, spanning numerous Kraft businesses in the US, Canada and Mexico.
Early in her career, Rosenfeld served as Associate Product Manager on Country Time Lemonade. From there, she moved through successively more responsible positions, driving innovation. In 1991 she was named Executive Vice President and General Manager of the Beverages Division. Three years later, Rosenfeld was named Executive Vice President and General Manager of the Desserts & Snacks Division.
In 1996, Rosenfeld became President of Kraft Canada, that nation's largest packaged food company. In 2000, in addition to her responsibilities in Canada, she was named Group Vice President, Kraft Foods, and President of Operations, Technology and Procurement. In February 2001, Mexico, Puerto Rico and Information Systems were added to her responsibilities.
Among Rosenfeld's many accomplishments at Kraft, she led the highly successfully integration of the Nabisco acquisition. In addition, she has led the restructuring and turnaround of a number of key businesses. She also served on the senior team that led Kraft's Initial Public Offering in 2001.
Irene Rosenfeld received bachelor, master, and doctorate degrees from Cornell University.
William Rosenzweig is co-founder and Managing Director at Physic Ventures. He focuses on creating and building early-stage opportunities that bring science to consumers in the areas of prevention, wellness and sustainable living. Will is currently on the board of directors of Attune Foods, EnergyHub, GoodGuide, and Pharmaca.
Will was previously co-founder and Managing Director of Great Spirit Ventures, a venture fund focused on the consumer-driven health sector and co-founder and CEO of Brand New Brands, a functional food accelerator fund.
Earlier in his career, Will actively participated in creating successful food and consumer-driven health companies as an investor or member of senior management. In 1990, Will co-founded and served as President, CEO, and Minister of Progress of The Republic of Tea, an award-winning specialty tea company that is often credited with creating the premium tea category in the United States. The company grew very rapidly and was acquired in 1994. In 1995, Will was named Senior Vice President of Odwalla (1994-1997), the nation's largest fresh juice company where he directed the brand and strategy of the company. His prior work experience includes roles as Vice President of Nakamichi (1985-1989); Partner and CEO of Hambrecht Vineyards and Wineries (1998-2001); Chairman of Winetasting.com (1998-2001); and Co-Founder of Venture Strategy Partners(1997-2000). He also worked on the founding team of LeapFrog, a leading education and toy company. In 2004, he founded Kingdom of Herbs, a purveyor of organic products for home and garden at the Ferry Building in San Francisco.
Will was on the faculty at the Center for Responsible Business at the Haas School of Business at University of California, Berkeley from 1999 to 2006, where he taught the MBA course in Social Entrepreneurship.
Will is the co-author of The Republic of Tea: How an Idea Becomes a Business (Doubleday 1992, 1994), a bestselling book that chronicles the start up of a new company and how an idea becomes a busines.
Will Rosenzweig's comments are from the panel discussion entitled Investing in the New Economy: The Changing Landscape and its Funding Models from Entrepreneurship at Cornell's Celebration event in April 2010.
Will Rosenzweig received his undergraduate degree from Cornell University.
Barbara Ross is Vice President, Human Resources at Chobani.
Doug Rowan has served as President and CEO of Imaging Solutions Corporation, a Kirkland, Washington-based consulting company established to help companies plan strategy, find customers and identify funding for their digital content related products and services. The focus over the past year on been on helping retailers, manufacturers and service providers reach Today's Mom through social media, television and branding. One of the companies that Imaging Solutions has been helping is ZoomAlbum which provides a family of innovative products through which consumers and professionals can produce very high quality photo albums using ink jet printers in the home or stores.
From August 1998 until February 2002, Doug also served as Founder and CEO of Impli, Inc., a company installing flat panel computer screens in checkout lanes at supermarkets to entertain and advertise to shoppers waiting to checkout. During 1998 and 1999, Doug also worked with a group to prepare "A Digital Strategy for the Library of Congress†which was published in 2000. Prior to this, Doug was recruited by Bill Gates and served as President and CEO of Corbis Corporation from 1994 to 1997. At Corbis, Doug oversaw the acquisition of the Bettmann Archive, established the Corbis brand and migrated the Corbis business from off-line licensing and CD-ROMs to the current Corbis online licensing business. From 1991 to 1993, Doug served as President of another image content and software pioneer, AXS Optical Technology Resource of Berkeley, California. AXS developed and sold software to manage photographs for the top 25 newspapers in the U.S., signing exclusive content agreements with organizations such as the Brooklyn and Frick Museums, among others. AXS was an early leader in metadata with newspapers and others. Before that, Doug's experience includes serving in executive positions for AMPEX of Redwood City, CA, from 1988 to 1990; MASSCOMP of Westford, Massachusetts from 1984 to 1988; and IBM from 1962 to 1984.
Doug Rowan received a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering, and an MBA from Cornell University.
H. Alex Ruiz Senior Vice President of Client Services at Tenthwave Digital LLC, a nationwide firm specializing in social marketing, digital strategy and website design and development. Ruiz has been working in digital marketing for 15 years - ever since the concept of using the Internet to connect with customers was first developed. Ruiz began his career in account management at K2 Design, one of the first boutique digital agencies. Since then, he's worked building digital and social marketing campaigns for brands like Jim Beam, Birds Eye, adidas, American Express and the Wall Street Journal. Ruiz has worked at a host of digital marketing agencies including 360i, Digitas, i33 communications, K2 Design and Dennis Interactive. Alex Ruiz received his undergraduate degree from Cornell University.
<p>Steve Rushmore is President and Founder of HVS, a global hospitality consulting organization with offices in New York (Mineola), San Francisco, Miami, Boulder, Dallas, Vancouver, Toronto, São Paulo, Buenos Aires, London, New Delhi, Singapore, Madrid, and Sydney. He directs the worldwide operation of this firm and is responsible for future office expansion and new product development. Mr. Rushmore has provided consultation services for more than 12,000 hotels throughout the world during his 35-year career and specializes in complex issues involving hotel feasibility, valuations, and financing. He was one of the creators of the Microtel concept and was instrumental in its IPO.</p> <p>HVS has provided consulting services for thousands of clients in all 50 states and more than 60 foreign countries. Its professional staff of more than 150 industry specialists offers a wide range of services, including market feasibility studies, valuations, strategic analysis, development planning, and litigation support. Through its divisions, HVS supplies unique hotel consulting expertise in the areas of executive search, parking, golf, food and beverage operations, gaming, technology, hotel operations and management, asset management, interior design, investment counseling and brokerage. HVS is the industry's primary source of hotel sales information. Its databases contain information on more than 10,000 hotel transactions and thousands of financial statements. HVS is also the most comprehensive source of hotel compensation data.</p> <p>As a leading authority and prolific author on the topic of hotel feasibility studies and appraisals, Mr. Rushmore has written all five textbooks and two seminars for the Appraisal Institute covering this subject. He has also authored three reference books on hotel investing and has published more than 300 articles. He writes a monthly column for Hotels magazine and is widely quoted by major business and professional publications. Mr. Rushmore lectures extensively on hotel trends and has taught hundreds of classes and seminars to more than 20,000 industry professionals. He is on the faculty of the Cornell Hotel School's professional development program.</p> <p>Steve Rushmore has a BS degree from the Cornell Hotel School and an MBA from the University of Buffalo. </p>
As head of Comerica's Technology and Life Sciences Division in the Northeast, Dianne Russell oversees all lending to Life Sciences companies - including biotech, medical devices, bioinformatics and health-related companies. She has been responsible for the establishment of Comerica's national Life Sciences practice including the hiring of professionals with advanced degrees in molecular biology and medicine to build that practice.
Russell has extensive experience in the origination, negotiation and structuring of debt financings for companies at every stage of development from early stage pre-revenue companies to mature, profitable public corporations. She has managed specialized lending groups including those dedicated to M&A, leveraged buyouts and recapitalization. Formerly a Senior Vice President and Department Executive at Bank of Boston, Russell headed that bank's leveraged buyout operations while Division Executive of Acquisition Finance. Subsequently, she ran Large Corporate Banking which encompassed the five geographical lending regions covering the United States, plus two specialty groups, Acquisition Finance and Environmental Services.
Currently a member of the Board of Directors of Morton's Restaurant Group, Inc, she has also served on the board of directors for the Boys and Girls Clubs of Boston and for the Center for the Advancement of Ethics and Character at Boston University. Russell was appointed by Massachusetts Governor William F. Weld to the Board of Directors of the Massachusetts Development Finance Agency (MDFA), the state's development bank where she was named Treasurer and served as head of the agency's credit committee. She is currently Chairman of the Financial Advisory Board of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Catherine Russell is a working actress/manager/producer/professor. Named the "Cal Ripken of Broadway" by People Magazine for her performance record (over 21 years, no sick days, no vacations) in the long-running Off-Broadway thriller Perfect Crime (9000 performances and still counting), Catherine has appeared on Entertainment Tonight and the Today Show and has been the subject of profiles in numerous publications including The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Newsday, the New York Post, the Daily News, and the New Yorker.
Catherine loves teaching acting at NYU, which she has been doing since 1981. In 2005, she built a new theater center in the heart of Times Square, negotiating Off-Broadway's first corporate sponsorship, partnering with Snapple to create the Snapple Theater Center at 50th Street and Broadway, home to Perfect Crime (which Catherine also general manages) and a revival of The Fantasticks. She is also currently one of the lead producers of this production of the longest running musical in the world. She is an executive member of the Off-Broadway Alliance and a member of the League of Off-Broadway Theatres and Producers and the League of Professional Theatre Women. She is currently working on building another new multi-theater complex in Times Square and creating a new reality show, "They Were You" which will feature actors auditioning for the two leading young roles in The Fantasticks.
Catherine Russell received an undergraduate degree from Cornell University and a master's degree from New York University.
Matt Russo is the Managing Partner of Northwestern Mutual\'s midtown Manhattan office. In 1995, Russo joined the Northwestern Mutual Financial Network as a financial representative, concentrating his market within the medical field and the hospitality industry. As a financial representative, he had achieved Forum honors since 2000, and had been the recipient of numerous individual sales awards. In 1999, Russo was appointed Managing Director of The North Shore Group in Wakefield, Massachusetts. Under his direction, The North Shore Group had been awarded the District Network Office Growth Award for the last 6 years, and the Outstanding Achievement in Recruiting and Selection for the last seven years. Matt Russo received a Bachelor of Science in Hotel and Restaurant Administration in 1990 from Cornell University.
Rob Ryan earned national attention when he grew his 1989 start-up company, Ascend Communications, Inc., to more than $500 million in sales by 1995. Lucent Technologies acquired Ascend in 1999 for $23 billion, in what was termed at the time, the "largest technology merger ever."
Back surgery sidelined Ryan from Ascend in June of 1995, but soon after his recovery he reinvented himself as a "boot camp mentor" at his Montana ranch and began helping budding high-tech entrepreneurs formulate winning business plans and teaching them how to sell their ideas. Since Entrepreneur America began, Ryan has counseled dozens of aspiring entrepreneurs and as a result, 18 companies have been founded and mentored by his organization. Three of those companies rose to billion-dollar valuations.
Ryan received his undergraduate degree from Cornell University.
Elizabeth Ryan developed a passion for agriculture from earlier generations and is CEO of Breezy Hill Orchard.
Developed for and sold to thousands of New Yorkers in the Union Square Green Market, their products include apples, pears, peaches, plums, nectarines, and the value-added products that come from these fruits. The most significant of these value-added products is draft cider, for which the company aggressively raised private equity to launch a national product.
Elizabeth Ryan is a graduate of Cornell University.