Our Executive Director Robert W. Price
Dream It! Plan It! Do It!
Robert W. Price enjoys world renown as an expert in the field of entrepreneurial capitalism. He has nearly 30 years of entrepreneurial experience. He is a strategist, innovative thought leader, public speaker, creative educator, and prolific author. He has been the intellectual architect for a number of exciting and innovative projects around the world. He has written or edited more than a dozen books.
“Thinking is the hardest work there is. That’s why so few do it.”
- Henry Ford
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Find Robert On Facebook, Linkedin, and Twitter
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Supporting Entrepreneurial Capitalism Around the World
It is not enough to just focus on inventors and breakthrough innovations. Entrepreneurs need to be cultivated as well, so that innovations can be turned into jobs and economic growth.
entrepreneurial capitalism: private capital, investing in private start-ups, with potential for a viable harvest
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Global Business Advisor
As a consultant, Robert currently advises emerging growth companies on strategic planning, business planning, angel/venture capital financing, strategic alliances, and entrepreneurial marketing. An expert in packaging, placing, and presenting business plans, his clients’ business plans have raised more than $100 million from angels, venture capitalists, and strategic partners.
- Consultant to global entrepreneurs and private equity investors: angel, venture, corporate executives, board members, and chairmen.
- Great multi-disciplinary entrepreneurial background. Excellent at critical thinking, problem identification, operations management, venture team development, and problem solving. Consulted with venture capitalists and their start-ups, mid-cap publicly traded NASDAQ companies, on up to multibillion-dollar publicly traded companies.
- Advises high-tech and emerging growth companies on such issues as strategic planning, global expansion, business planning, financial modeling, marketing and new product strategies, venture team development, operations management, angel/venture capital financing strategies, strategic alliances, and mergers/acquisitions.
- His clients’ business plans have raised more than $100 million from angel investors, venture capitalists, and strategic capital partners like Apax Partners, IBM, HP/Compaq, Oracle, Siemens, Apollo Management, Rare Medium Ventures, and Tech Coast Angels, one of the largest formal angel groups in the world.
- Very active as a Social Entrepreneur around the world, advising nonprofit groups, nonprofit causes, and social cause marketing programs for corporate business leaders.
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Award Winning Projects
Most notably, he created innovative business strategies for a new online financial service during the early days of the Internet-era. This project became part of the Permanent Research Collection on Information Technology at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, as one of the most significant technology advances in the insurance arena.
McGraw-Hill’s Higher Education division is the world’s largest publisher of graduate level textbooks and publications. Working with McGraw-Hill Robert created the world’s first online series of textbooks and educational materials called PowerWeb. A password-protected Web site that offers professors a turnkey solution for adding the Internet to a course.
With over more than 125,00 subscribers, the PowerWeb site provides students with current articles from Annual Editions, curriculum-based materials, weekly updates with assessment, informative and timely world news, refereed Web links, research tools, student study tools, interactive exercises, and much more. PowerWeb was chosen to receive The McGraw-Hill Companies Corporate Achievement Award in Innovation from Terry McGraw, Chairman, Vice President, and CEO. This is one of the highest honors within the corporation.
He was also the brains behind one of the first online SaaS (software-as-a-service) ventures. Working in a strategic alliance with the IBM think tank for SMBs and the IBM venture capital group, this new Company went public on the NASDAQ market and reached a market cap of some $150 million. Now with more than four million customers, the Company’s solutions are sold through private label syndication on Fortune 2000 corporate Web sites, including JPMorgan Chase, Union Bank of California, BusinessWeek, Fast Company, and Inc. magazines, and through OEM distribution deals with Dell and Gateway Computers. Investors include Compaq, IBM, and Apollo Management.
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Thought Leader For Entrepreneurs
Robert is recognized expert and speaker on entrepreneurial management. He is a life-long serial entrepreneur and a supporter of entrepreneurship, and was honored as a semifinalist in the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year (EOY) Program.
Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur Of The Year® Award is the world’s most prestigious business award for entrepreneurs. The award makes a difference through the way it encourages entrepreneurial activity among those with potential and recognizes the contribution of people who inspire others with their vision, leadership and achievement. As the first and only truly global award of its kind, the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year® award celebrates those who are building and leading successful, growing and dynamic businesses, recognizing them through regional, national and global awards programs in more than 135 cities in 50 countries.
He has been quoted in a variety of publications and media outlets including: New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg Financial News, XM and Sirius Satellite Radio programming, Tom Peters NewsWire, Time Magazine, Fortune Magazine, Harvard Business School’s Working Knowledge, Forbes.com, National Federation of Independent Business, Small Business Advocate, American Venture Magazine, Home Business Magazine, Dallas Forth Worth News, Miami Herald, Export Today Magazine, Orange County Register, to Wells Fargo Small Business Report, Ceramics Today, and Today’s Chemist at Work.
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Young Americas Business Trust (YABT)
Each year Young Americas Business Trust (YABT) and the Talent and Innovation Contest (TIC) Americas presents awards as an international business plan competition and accelerator for young entrepreneurs. A non-profit corporation, YABT is affiliated with the General Secretariat of the Organization of American States (OAS), and aims to advance the goals of the OAS and Presidential Summits of the Americas to create employment opportunities and reduce poverty by supporting and promoting youth entrepreneurship. Currently, YABT also has National YABTs and representatives in twenty-five countries in the Americas.
TIC Americas presents awards as an international business plan competition and accelerator for young entrepreneurs. The TIC Americas model goes beyond business plans to include extended training, mentoring, and prototype phases to test the project’s feasibility in the real market. Awards include financial prizes, incubation, internships, as well as promotional and networking opportunities in seven awards areas: E-Business, Creative Design, Tradition and Culture, Spirit of Entrepreneurship, Social Entrepreneurship, New Markets and International Alliance. These initiatives will develop the extraordinary business potential of innovative young entrepreneurs and scientists, in collaboration with sponsors globally and from the thirty-four Member States of the Organization of American States (OAS).
In 2008 Robert was selected to be a Business Plan Judge at the Talent and Innovation Contest (TIC) held in Medellin, Colombia. In 2009 Robert was again selected to be a Business Plan Judge for the event which was held in Honduras. In 2008 he was a mentor to the TIC Business Plan contest winners.
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Creative Educator
At Chapman University Robert was invited to develop and teach innovative entrepreneurship classes at Chapman University in Orange, California. Chapman’s undergraduate entrepreneurship program is now ranked #6 in the USA and their graduate entrepreneurship program is ranked #8 in the USA by Entrepreneur magazine.
About Chapman University
Established in 1996 for students, alumni, and Orange County businesses, the Ralph W. Leatherby Center for Entrepreneurship and Business Ethics provides resources for individuals interested in succeeding with entrepreneurial pursuits. Nationally ranked in entrepreneurship by Entrepreneur magazine and The Princeton Review, the center provides advice on start–up strategies, business and marketing plans, strategies for growing firms as well as guidance in securing angel and venture capital funding. Students are provided opportunities for entrepreneurial internships, business plan contests, consulting team projects and mentorship opportunities.
Chapman’s Entrepreneurship Program was recently selected by the United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship (USASBE) as the first-place winner of the Innovative Pedagogy Award. The USASBE Excellence in Education Awards are sponsored by Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE). Additionally, Women 3.0 magazine included Chapman University in their 2008 listing of Top 50 MBA Programs with an entrepreneurship focus.
Cal-State Fullerton (CSUF)
As an associate professor, Robert was invited to develop and teach innovative entrepreneurship classes at California State University Fullerton and their Small Business Institute. CSUF’s Small Business Institute has won over 40 awards for outstanding student consulting to small business owners. It won the 1996, 1998, 2001, 2004, 2005, and 2008 National Graduate Case of the Year Award from the Small Business Institute Director’s Association.
Pepperdine University
While studying as an MBA student at Pepperdine University, and as a part of a class assignment, Robert created a business plan that outlined the world’s first formal university-affiliated “Bootcamp” for entrepreneurs where working professionals earn a Certificate in 14-weeks instead of a business degree. So innovative was the idea that Pepperdine used his business plan to develop and launch their Entrepreneurial Management Program. Upon graduation Robert was hired by Pepperdine as a consultant, curricula developer, and later was hired as an instructor for this revolutionary non-degree Certificate Program.
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Prolific Author
In his role as a Senior Research Fellow at the Global Entrepreneurship Institute Robert has written or edited more than a dozen books. His books are required reading at Harvard Business School, Stanford University, UCLA, USC, Wharton, Caltech, Indiana University, New York University and many more leading universities and colleges around the world. His entrepreneurship books and course materials are used in the Top 10 best graduate programs in the USA that teach entrepreneurship, and 8 of the Top 10 best undergraduate programs in the USA that teach entrepreneurship. His work has been translated into more than 10 languages.
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Personal Information
Born in the United States, Robert has lived, worked, or studied in Spain, Germany, France, Austria, and Mexico. He speaks in Spanish, German, and French. Robert earned his MBA from Pepperdine University in Malibu, California and Bachelors degree in International Studies/Western Europe from Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio.
He has been very active outside of the business world and classroom. Once raced dirt bike motorcycles professionally. Although he has owned more than 28 motorcycles, he now spins his wheels by mountain biking in Southern California in the summer, enjoys skiing in the winter. He travels extensively around the world for business assignments, guest lecturing, presenting, nonprofit projects, and on holidays.
>>Detailed CV at LinkedIn
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