Mark Miller has a twenty-year track record with expertise in business strategy, business development, fund raising, and middle-market M&A. Miller's area of focus includes the full spectrum of the higher education marketplace: educational, custom and on-demand publishing, and publishing technology, new media and online communities. Miller's greatest strengths include his faith in a long-developed gut instinct; his ability to connect with Boards and other C-level executives, helping them through the complexities and ups and downs of the M&A process; and his drive to get deals to the goal line.
Miller has been a serial entrepreneur since winning Cornell University's Johnson School Business Plan Competition for TakeNote. Miller founded and has served as president and executive chairman of a number of outsourced service and technology companies. Miller was founder and CEO of TakeNote; The Custom Publishing Group; NetPaper; PowerProse; The Daily Jolt; and CollegiateLink. Miller is currently the founder and CEO of markmillers LLC, a middle-market M&A advisory services company. Miller served as the sole advisor on the sale of Xplana Learning to MBS Textbooks/Barnes & Noble College Stores. Miller has provided consulting services and served on boards of for-profits and non-profit companies, including O'Reilly Media, Harvard Business School Publishing, Tizra, Course Advisor, Textbook Revolution and Freeload Press.
Dan Sommer became division president of social media and marketing Services at XL Marketing after its acquisition of Caridan Marketing Labs, an interactive marketing agency that he founded in 2007.
Prior to founding Caridan Marketing Labs, Sommer served as SVP at HNW (www.hnw.com), a strategic marketing agency focused on the affluent segment. He was responsible for leading marketing engagements, and managing some of the firm's largest relationships with financial services and luxury brands. While at HNW, Sommer was instrumental in developing the firm's direct and interactive marketing practice area. Prior to HNW, Dan worked in the marketing group of Digitas Inc. (www.digitas.com) where he led interactive marketing and web development efforts for American Express. Prior to Digitas, he served as vice president at Zustek (www.Zustek.com), an interactive marketing agency, where he developed and implemented marketing strategies for Fortune 500 companies including Time Inc., Caesars Entertainment, Alliance Capital Management and a host of entrepreneurial firms.
Sommer was co-founder and COO of SimplyDone Business Solutions, an enterprise software and consulting firm that sold a unique CRM application to large service-based franchise businesses. He began his career at Sapient Corporation (www.sapient.com), a systems integrator and ecommerce consultancy.
Sommer has an MS from NYU in direct and interactive marketing and a BS in applied economics and business management from Cornell University.
Stuart Flack is the Executive Director of the Chicago Humanities Festival. He joined the Chicago Humanities Festival as executive director in October 2007.
He was a partner at McKinsey & Company, where he provided consulting services in the areas of public affairs and marketing and, as its publisher and editor-in-chief, he built The McKinsey Quarterly into a leading international journal of business, economics and public policy. During his 25 years as a playwright, he has written "Homeland Security," "Sydney Bechet Killed a Man," "Jonathan Wild," "Floaters" and "American Life and Casualty." His plays have been produced at some of the leading theatres in the US including Victory Gardens (in Chicago), Southcoast Repertory Company (Costa Mesa, CA), Culture Project (New York, NY), Contemporary American Theatre Festival (Washington, DC) and Interact Theatre (Philadelphia, PA). His honors as a playwright include a McDowell Foundation Grant, a Joseph Jefferson Award Nomination, and a Los Angeles Dramalogue Award.
Stuart Flack earned a Master of Fine Arts in playwrighting from Columbia University and a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy from Cornell University.
John Suter is the President of the Board of Directors for the Center for Transformative Action.
John Suter is a graduate of Wesleyan University.
Kim K. Azzarelli is Vice President, New Business Ventures & Managing Director, Women in the World at Newsweek Daily Beast. Ms. Azzarelli has held senior legal, public affairs and philanthropic roles in U.S. public companies, including Goldman Sachs, the Hain Celestial Group and Avon Products, seeking to combine her experience in law, business and philanthropy with her passion for women's legal and economic empowerment. She is the co-founder and Chair of the Avon Global Center for Women and Justice at Cornell Law School and serves on the Board of the Avon Foundation for Women.
Kim Azzarelli is a graduate of Cornell Law School, Cornell University and Friends Seminary in NYC where she was born and raised.
Louise Hurlbut is a partner at Beneterre. For the past 30 years, Hurlbut has been engaged in entrepreneurial ventures, corporate management and small service companies providing marketing, planning, research, strategy and new product development expertise. She was an initial funder and partner of the Boppy Company, maker of the eight-time winner of the #1 Baby Product by American Baby Magazine. Her most recent venture is in the eco-friendly market, designing and manufacturing a line of reusable and washable bags for portable food, wine and fresh produce under the brand name Beneterre. Hurlbut with her partner continuously design new products to replace plastic and paper and encourage consumers to be eco-friendly by purchasing and using American made Beneterre products.
Lousie Hurlbut has her undergraduate degree from Mills College and her MBA from the Johnson School at Cornell University.
For Elizabeth Classen Ambrose, Bridges Cornell Heights, a premium enhanced assisted living residence located adjacent to Cornell's campus, represents the culmination of more than 20 years of geriatric care immersion. Her journey began in 1989 when she founded a NYS licensed home health care agency in partnership with her sister, Patricia Classen. Within two years, their agency grew from four to more than 120 employees, becoming the largest privately owned licensed agency in upstate NY. Their partnership evolved with the opening of three high quality, assisted living homes in 1994, 1996 and 1998. Through these experiences, Ambrose recognized a strong need for a premium retirement facility closely connected with the cultural and ongoing educational opportunities of Cornell University.
In 2001, Ambrose created Bridges Cornell Heights, the first licensed Enhanced Assisted Living Residence (EALR) in NY, and as such became the prototype for the state's EALR designation. Its training/staff development methods provide a framework for the NYS DOH quality assurance guidelines, and it was recognized for sensitive development in a historic district by Rotary and City of Ithaca. Ambrose's inspiration comes from a love for people, especially older, wiser people, and she plays an active role in the lives of the residents who call Bridges home.
Scott Drassinower is the President of Cloud 9 Internet, Inc. He started Cloud 9 in 1993 after being frustrated by the lack of internet access in his hometown outside of New York City. Pressed for time as a high school student and working out of a cramped office in his father's medical practice, he had incentive to quickly grow the company. Throughout the 1990s, Cloud 9 expanded to provide service to businesses, non-profits, and government agencies in the New York metropolitan area. Drassinower realized that information technology and entrepreneurship are two subjects that can be learned well in the real world, and decided to begin a course of study that is best suited for the classroom: a liberal arts education.
After graduating from Cornell in 2002 with a degree in comparative literature, he continued to build Cloud 9 as it entered its second decade. The company's new focus is information technology consulting for small and medium businesses, with an emphasis on managed services hosted in its own data center.
Brendan Cullen is Vice President for Growth and Innovation at Education Pioneers He joined Education Pioneers to help build a pipeline of diverse leaders in the education sector. Cullen served as Education Pioneers' first Bay Area managing director from 2005-2008, and currently oversees organizational growth and new initiatives.
He began his career in education as a middle school language arts teacher in Baltimore, Maryland through Teach for America. Cullen later worked as a founding campus director for Citizen Schools, a non-profit after-school program based in Boston. Before moving to the Bay Area, Cullen served as director of the Sponsors for Educational Opportunity (SEO) Scholars program in New York City and a project manager for the New York City Department of Education's Empowered Schools Initiative.
Brendan Cullen received a BA in English from Cornell University and a master of theological studies from Harvard Divinity School.