<p>Larry Robertson has spent more than two decades in the entrepreneurial universe in roles ranging from advisor to investor and many in between. In 1992, he founded Lighthouse Consulting, which, appropriately, guides entrepreneurial ventures, their leaders, and those who invest in them. Robertson frequently lectures on entrepreneurship at Georgetown and Cornell Universities and is a recognized expert on entrepreneurship in public, private, and academic forums.</p> <p>Robertson is on the Board of Directors of Handwriting Without Tears and Really Great Reading, serves as Vice Chair of Netpreneur, and sits on the advisory boards of several other organizations. His professional journey includes roles with investment banking and venture capital firm Robertson, Stephens & Company, JP Morgan, and the Walt Disney Company.</p> <p>Robertson is the author of A Deliberate Pause: Entrepreneurship and its Moment in Human Progress, a game-changing book about the power of entrepreneurship and the truth behind everyone's ability to access it.</p> <p>Larry Robertson is a graduate of both Stanford University and the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University.</p>
Chris Stoia works during the day as a Manager for Northport Apparel. When he is not busy with his day job, he is working on developing his own startup in Evening and Bridal Dress Designs.
Chris Stoia received his undergraduate degree from Cornell University.
Diane Brush has extensive professional experience in design. After graduating college, Brush took a position designing children's wear in Manhattan for nine years. She then moved to San Francisco to work on Esprit's children's wear line for five years. As her career in children's wear moved forward, Brush also became interested in home furnishings. She moved to Wisconsin for two years to design Lands' End's home and children's wear lines. After leaving her position there, she moved to Garnet Hill in New Hampshire and revamped the catalog company into a design house. Brush became co-president of the company and executed a new design focus for the brand.
Brush has since left Garnet Hill and is now the design director at MacKenzie-Childs, a ceramics and home furnishings design firm in Aurora, New York.
Diane Brush is a graduate of Parsons School of Design in New York City.
Margaret Taft is the founder of her consulting company, Design Works, as well as the creator of the product, Calf Cozies.
Taft also discusses her current product, Calf Cozies, and provides examples of the challenges she has faced in the production, distribution, advertisement, marketing and financing of the product.
Joan Reuning owns and operates FIbers and Fantasy, a large and exciting retail gallery near Cayuga Lake in Ithaca, NY. The store features contemporary clothing and a huge variety of American Crafts.
In addition to owning the store, Joan Reuning is a fiber artist who designs many of the stores clothing pieces.
Joan Reuning is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY.
Steve Medwin is the manager of advanced research at The Raymond Corporation. Since 2004, he has been evaluating the application of fuel cell technology to the material handling business. For the previous three years, Medwin worked with Raymond's Test Engineering and Test & Reliability groups. Prior to working at Raymond, he spent 20 years in research and development at DuPont. Medwin is the inventor of nine U.S. patents and is a member of the UL 2267 Standards Technical Panel for Fuel Cell Power Systems for Industrial Electric Trucks, and chairman of the new Energy Storage Systems committee of the Industrial Truck Association (ITA).
Steve Medwin received his bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from Cornell University and his master's degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Pennsylvania. He recently completed the Executive MBA program at Binghamton University in Binghamton, NY.
Jim Ochterski has been an Extension agent in the Finger Lakes region of New York for more than 15 years and currently leads the Agriculture Team at Cornell Cooperative Extension of Ontario County. Although Jim assists farms in many areas of production and sales, his areas of expertise include farm marketing, business development, sustainable farming and community relations.
Jim Ochterski holds a BS in Cell Biology from the University of Rochester and a Master's degree in Natural Resources from the University of Michigan.
Shelly Porges is the National Finance Co-Chair for the Ready for Hillary Super PAC. Prior to this role, Porges was a Franklin Fellow and Senior Advisor leading the Global Women's Business Initiative at the U.S. State Department. She is a recognized marketing and strategy expert having launched products, brands and companies, as well as raised funds for a range of non-profit and political organizations. Before joining the State Department, Ms. Porges had a distinguished private sector career as both a corporate executive (American Express and Bank of America) and entrepreneur. Most recently, she served as chair of the board for Count Me In for Women's Economic Independence, the leading non-profit online accelerator for women-owned businesses. Shelly Porges holds both a BS and MPS degree from Cornell University. She was a founding member of the President's Council of Cornell Women.
Barbara Novick is a member of BlackRock's Global Executive and Global Operating Committees and Chairs the Government Relations Steering Committee.
From the inception of the firm in 1988 to 2008, Ms. Novick headed the Global Client Group and oversaw global business development, marketing and client service across equity, fixed income, liquidity, alternative investment and real estate products for institutional and individual investors and their intermediaries worldwide. In her current role, Ms. Novick heads the firm's efforts globally on Government Relations and Public Policy.
Prior to founding BlackRock in 1988, Ms. Novick was a Vice President in the Mortgage Products Group at The First Boston Corporation. Ms. Novick joined First Boston in 1985 where she became head of the Portfolio Products Team. From 1982 to 1985, Ms. Novick was with Morgan Stanley.
Barbara Novick earned a BA degree, cum laude, in economics from Cornell University in 1981.