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Entrepreneurship Speakers

 

What does it take to build a company from the ground up, to start from scratch and end up with millions? Our entrepreneurship speakers share the stories and lessons you need to hear before embarking on the biggest business adventure of your life.

 

18
Entrepreneurship
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Luke Burgis

Entrepreneur-in-Residence | Author of Wanting: Our Secret Economy of Desire

How can we create things that benefit us as people? That is the question that author, entrepreneur, and investor Luke Burgis asks. His people-first perspective stems from a lifetime of unique experiences: working on Wall Street, founding companies in Silicon Valley, even studying theology. Today, Burgis applies mimetic theory—the idea that desire is a social mechanism—to business. In talks, he shows us the hidden forces behind why we want things, how to break free from destructive desires, and how to cultivate the intentional desires that build a better world.
David Cote

Former Chairman & CEO of Honeywell | Author of Winning Now, Winning Later

When it comes to manufacturing, David Cote stands in a league of his own. The most successful leader of a Fortune 100 industrial conglomerate of his era, Cote joined Honeywell after a 25-year-career at GE. Under his leadership, Honeywell’s market capitalization climbed about an astonishing 100 billion dollars. Rather than fixating on either long-term strategies or quarterly results, Cote empowered his organization to pursue both simultaneously. In talks, he shows how leaders can sustain their long-term entrepreneurial vision, even when pressures to deliver in the present are at their most intense.
Marcus Bullock

Founder and CEO of Flikshop | Justice Reform Advocate | TED Speaker

Sentenced at fifteen years old to eight years—for stealing a car—Bullock faced many challenges once released. But he found a creative solution that sparked social change: founding his own software company, Flikshop, Inc. It’s mission is to connect incarcerated people with their families, build community, and empower inmates in constructive ways to ease their return to society—and help reduce recidivism.  
Laura Huang

Harvard Business School Professor | Author of EDGE (2020)

In the elusive pursuit of success, you need an edge, says Harvard professor Laura Huang, one of the top business school professors in America. Huang’s talks show how you can make your hard work “work harder for you” by comprehending the factors that have little to do with your talent and effort—and everything to do with making the most of them.  
 
Ellen Bennett

Culinary Entrepreneur | Founder and CEO of Hedley & Bennett

Ellen Bennett was working as a cook at one of LA’s busiest restaurants, tying on a $5 apron before hitting the line. Years later, this self-starting culinary entrepreneur is the founder and CEO of Hedley & Bennett, beloved by the likes of Martha Stewart and Momofuku’s David Chang. In her charismatic talks, Bennett explains how you can jumpstart your own idea, whatever it may be. 
Bassam Tariq

TED Fellow and Award-winning Director of The Ghosts of Sugar Land

Where do you seek representation, and how do you make yourself heard, seen, and understood? These questions inspire Bassam Tariq as a filmmaker, an entrepreneur, and speaker. Tariq investigates the way Muslim Americans live in our polarized world today, transcending religion and politics to tell a deeply human story that affects us all.
Nina Tandon

CEO and Co-Founder of EpiBone, TED Senior Fellow

Nina Tandon works on growing artificial hearts and bones that can be put into the body, and studies the new frontier of biotech: homes, textiles, and videogames made of cells. Named one of Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business, and one of Foreign Policy’s 100 Leading Global Thinkers, she speaks on the future of healthcare and technology, and biology's new industrial revolution.  
Matt Ruby

Comedian | Creator of Vooza

Stand-up comedian and entrepreneurship speaker Matt Ruby shows you how to succeed in business by demonstrating, hilariously, all the ways to fail. Ruby’s talks meld creative business strategy and standup humor: entertaining, instructing, and cutting through the jargon of the start-up and business world to increase the humanity in your workflow.
 
Heather Payne

Founder and CEO of Juno College | Founder of Ladies Learning Code

Heather Payne is the founder of Ladies Learning Code, a national not-for-profit organization that runs popular workshops for women and girls. Named one of Canada’s 100 Most Powerful Women by the Women’s Executive Network, she is revolutionizing our approach to technology, education, and entrepreneurship.  
 
Yancey Strickler

Co-founder & Former CEO of Kickstarter | Author of This Could Be Our Future (Oct. 29)

Our current society is trapped by three assumptions, says writer and Kickstarter co-founder Yancey Strickler: that the point of life is to maximize self-interest and wealth; that we’re individuals trapped in an adversarial world; and that this is natural. Strickler urges us to discard these three  assumptions that limit our ability to imagine and innovate a new future.
 
Manjit Minhas

Founder of the 10th Largest Brewery in the World, Co-Star of CBC’s Dragons’ Den

A formidable speaker, Manjit Minhas is an entrepreneur and judge on Dragons’ Den who shares business lessons with equal parts force and finesse. Minhas runs a $187 million brewery that she and her brother built from scratch. Her unprecedented success demolished stereotypes, surprised her competitors, and cleared a path for entrepreneurs of every age and gender.   
Michael Katchen

Founder and CEO of Wealthsimple

If Toronto is the Silicon Valley of the North, then Michael Katchen is one of its leading figures. “We’re primed for a historic revolution in innovation,” he says. “We just don’t know it yet.” Katchen is the founder and CEO of Wealthsimple, whose easy-to-use service has redefined investing for a young generation, and whose massive success has disrupted the financial services industry. 
 
Eddie Huang

Celebrity Chef | Bestselling Author of Fresh Off the Boat | Host for Vice and MTV

Celebrity chef. Bestselling author of Fresh Off the Boat—adapted into the groundbreaking hit ABC sitcom—as well as Double Cup Love. Yes, entrepreneur Eddie Huang is many things, but beneath each incarnation is an irresistible story of entrepreneurship and self-made success. He speaks on how embracing cultural diversity—your own story—is vital if we want to grow as people, and as a society. 
Jessica Jackley

Co-Founder of Kiva, the microlending site, and Author of Clay Water Brick

You can do good and do well at the same time. Just ask Jessica Jackley, founder of KIVA, the world’s most successful microlending site. On stage, Jackley delivers an upbeat and enduring message: you can synthesize your disparate skills, as she did, to create a meaningful life and career.  
Joe Mimran

Founder, Joe Fresh | Co-Founder and Chairman of Gibralter & Company

Joe Mimran is a true innovator—of retail, design, business, manufacturing—he disrupted the fashion industry before people even had a word for it. In his keynotes he details the methods he used to grow Joe Fresh, Club Monaco, and Alfred Sung—some of the industry’s best-known brands, into global successes.   
Sarah Prevette

Innovation Speaker, Founder of Future Design School

“Fall in love with the problem you’re solving—not the solution,” says entrepreneur Sarah Prevette. Prevette teaches creativity, innovation, and design thinking to some of the country’s biggest business leaders. Her new project, Future Design School, is transforming education by fostering entrepreneurship in a classroom setting.  
Arlene Dickinson

Business Speaker, CEO of Venture Communications, Star of Dragons' Den

“The purpose of marketing is to deliver business results,” says Arlene Dickinson, renowned CBC “dragon” and one of Canada’s most successful communications entrepreneurs. Whether explaining how to leverage marketing in tough economic times or speaking on her personal story of success, Dickinson’s experience and expertise always shine through. 
Kavita Shukla

Founder & CEO of The FRESHGLOW Co.

Kavita Shukla is the groundbreaking social entrepreneur behind FreshPaper, a biodegradable paper that creates a brilliant solution to the global issue of food waste. Shukla’s ingenuity makes her an inspiration for young entrepreneurs, women in business, and social innovators alike.