Bio
Gina Bianchini
Gina Bianchini is the founder and CEO of Mightybell, a new social platform for people who favor actions over words. Mightybell provides a simple way for creators and instigators to define and share with others an organized series of step-by-step, day-by-day actions grouped together as "experiences" that can be completed by anyone in the world.
In 2004, Gina Bianchini founded Ning, the first (and largest) social platform for the world's organizers, activists, and influencers to create unique, highly flexible social networks in 30 seconds for free. She led Ning as CEO from its inception to March 2010 as an exponentially growing top 100 global website and, during her tenure, one of the most valuable start-ups in Silicon Valley with 300,000 monthly active Ning Networks, 46 million registered users and 90 million visitors a month, adding 1 million new registered users every 14 days.
She has been featured in Fast Company, Vanity Fair, Fortune Magazine's “40 under 40,” Huffington Post's 10 technology "Ultimate Game Changers," and San Francisco's 7x7 magazine's "Hot 20" list, as well as Wired, The New York Times, Forbes, and The Wall Street Journal. She has also appeared on Charlie Rose, CNBC, and CNN.
David Rose
David S. Rose is CEO of Gust, the international collaboration platform for early stage angel investing. Gust powers the global entrepreneurial economy by enabling qualified startups to get financed by the smartest investors. It is the official collaboration solution of the world's leading early stage investment associations, providing knowledge and collaboration tools supporting all aspects of deal flow management, from pitch to exit. Gust currently serves over 35,000 accredited investors, 750 angel investment networks and venture capital funds, and 180,000 early stage companies in five languages and 92 countries, with more than 5,000 new companies each month using the platform to create customised investor relations websites.
Rose is also an Associate Founder, with Ray Kurzweil and Peter Diamandis, of Singularity University, the Google/NASA-sponsored graduate program in exponential technologies, and as its Track Chair for Finance and Entrepreneurship has established one of the first academic programs on the future of finance. A serial entrepreneur and active angel investor, Rose has founded six companies and funded over 80 others. Red Herring magazine described him as the "Patriarch of Silicon Alley," and Crain's New York Business called him "the father of angel investing in New York." He is currently Managing Director of Rose Tech Ventures, a seed stage venture fund; Founder and Chairman Emeritus of New York Angels, the most active angel investment group on the East Coast; and Chairman of Egret Capital Partners, a middle-market private equity firm.
Leonard Schlesigner
Leonard A. Schlesinger became the 12th president of Babson College on July 1, 2008. He came to Babson from Limited Brands, based in Columbus, Ohio, where he served in executive positions from 1999 - 2007, most recently as Vice Chairman and Chief Operating Officer. From 1985 - 1988, he was Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at Au Bon Pain.
His academic career includes twenty years at Harvard Business School where he served as the George Fisher Baker Jr. Professor of Business Administration, leading MBA and executive education programs. Courses he taught include organizational behavior, human resource management, general management, and service management. President Schlesinger is well-known for his pioneering research and publications on the "Service Profit Chain." He also was architect and chair of Harvard Business School's MBA Essential Skills and Foundations programs. After his time at Harvard Business School, he served as a Professor of Sociology and Public Policy and Senior Vice President and Counselor to the President at Brown University.
President Schlesinger has lectured and consulted on service quality, customer satisfaction, and organizational change for over 200 major corporations, non-profit organizations, governments and international leadership organizations around the world. He was an active leader in the design and development of the "Work-Out!" initiative at General Electric and the "Reinventing Government" process for the U.S. Department of Labor.
His writings on organizational management have been widely published. He is the author or co-author of eleven books, including Just Start: Take action, Embrace uncertainty, Create the future (Harvard Business School Press 2012), Action Trumps Everything (Black Ink Press, 2010), The Value Profit Chain (Free Press, 2003), The Service Profit Chain (Free Press, 1997) and The Real Heroes of Business ... and Not a CEO among Them (Doubleday Currency, 1994), and has written over 40 articles for academic audiences as well as for The New York Times, Fast Company, and Harvard Business Review. He has served on the editorial boards of four major academic journals and has published numerous case studies on management issues that have sold well over one million copies. He also has completed three video series on service management issues.
Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran
Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran is an award-winning journalist, author, and public speaker. The Financial Times recently proclaimed him to be “a writer to whom it is worth paying attention.” A 20-year veteran of The Economist, he is currently the magazine’s China business and finance editor. Kirkus Reviews has called Need, Speed, and Greed, Vaitheeswaran’s new book on global innovation, “the perfect primer for the postindustrial age.” He is a life member at the Council on Foreign Relations and advisor to the World Economic Forum. His commentaries have appeared on NPR and the BBC, and in The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.
ZOOM IN: Learn more with related books and additional materials.
Encyclopædia Britannica Article
- Economist, The
Weekly magazine of news and opinion, founded in 1843 and published in London, generally regarded as one of the world's preeminent journals of its kind. It gives thorough and wide-ranging coverage of general news and particularly of international political developments that bear on the world's economy. In accord with the views promoted by its founders and conveyed by legendary Economist editor Walter Bagehot, the publication maintains the position that free markets typically provide the best method of running economies and governments. North America accounts for about half of its total readership.
- Economist, The on britannica.com
© 2010 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
