David Weinstein

President

Chicagoland Entrepreneurial Center

Moderator

David is president of the Chicagoland Entrepreneurial Center (CEC), an organization that works with high-growth entrepreneurs to create and sustain opportunities for business success, job growth and profitability.  Since its inception, CEC clients have secured $120 million in revenue and $72.5 million in financing. David is also managing director of the Illinois Innovation Accelerator Fund (i2A), a $10 million seed-stage venture capital fund.

Recently, he led David Weinstein & Associates, LLC, a Chicago-based consulting firm assisting businesses in extending their services and products to the public sector. Previously, Weinstein was president and CEO of BlueMeteor, a technology firm he helped launch and grow to $5 million in revenue and 110 employees. At BlueMeteor, he led the firm in successfully raising $30 million of venture capital. Earlier, he was Mayor Richard M. Daley’s senior technology advisor.

 Weinstein graduated from the University of Wisconsin at Madison with honors and earned his MBA from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern

President & CEO

3B Media, Inc.

"Against All Odds"

Building and managing a successful company in today’s environment requires a unique set of personality traits, skills, and market conditions.   A true entrepreneur must have a strong vision, an iron will, a tremendous work ethic, and the unwavering belief in the ultimate goal.  The challenges may seem insurmountable, the workload daunting, financing scarce, success almost unreachable, but it is the measure of true vision and leadership to persist and prevail against all odds.  Bashar B. Barazi will share with you how he took the 3B Group of companies from an idea to global success. 

Founder & President

Electronic Knowledge Interchange

"Entrepreneurship, My Only Option"

My life as an entrepreneur started when I was 8 years old, long before I knew what an entrepreneur was. I was drawn early on to being in control of my own destiny. For some portion of the population, the desire to control their own destiny and express their creativeness through business leads them to start companies.  My restlessness and desire to do things my own way led me to believe that I had no other option than to work for myself.

Entrepreneurship, especially self-funded entrepreneurship requires a niche, strong vision, leadership skills, empathy, focus, discipline, the ability to manage risk, a positive mental attitude, restlessness and fearlessness.  Understanding what makes entrepreneurs succeed and fail increases the odds of having a sustainable and vibrant business.

Chris Gladwin

Chairman & CEO
Cleversafe

"Building Big, Small Businesses"

After starting three major technology startups over the last 12 years, raising (and spending) over $50 million in venture capital from 10 rounds of venture capital at three different companies in completely different markets leading to over 100,000 customers, Chris Gladwin claims that he “is finally starting to understand” how to effectively build a technology business.  Mr. Gladwin will share key insights from these experiences, such as:  It is not 1,000 times harder to start a 1,000 times bigger business, so building a big business provides a great return to an entrepreneur.

     Organizational Co-Sponsors:

ASIAN SOCIAL NETWORK

METROPOLITAN BOARD OF THE CHICAGO URBAN LEAGUE

MENTTIUM CORPORATION

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF ASIAN AMERICAN PROFESSIONALS (NAAAP) CHICAGO

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF BLACK ACCOUNTANTS, INC (NABA) - CHICAGO CHAPTER

WOMEN'S BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT CENTER

INTERNATIONAL VISITORS CENTER OF CHICAGO, YOUNG INTERNATIONALS

UNITED NATIONS ASSOCIATIONS, STATE OF ILLINOIS DIVISION