Entrepreneurs Lecture Series
The Entrepreneurs Lecture Series is designed to showcase outstanding innovation and entrepreneurship among NC State alumni and partners. This semi-annual event features a lecture from prominent entrepreneurial leaders followed by networking.
The Fall 2011 Entrepreneurs Lecture Series was held on November 14, 2011 in partnership with Triangle Entrepreneurship Week. Click here to view the entire presentation.
About the Fall 2011 Speakers
John Harthorne is the Founder and CEO of MassChallenge, a startup competition and accelerator designed to catalyze a startup renaissance by connecting high-impact startups from around the world with the resources they need to launch and succeed. The first annual competition launched in April 2010 and 16 winners split a prize pool of $1 million in cash in October 2010. The 2011 MassChallenge competition received over 730 applications from 34 states and 24 countries.
In 1995, Heather Hesketh founded hesketh.com as an Internet technology consultancy working with corporate marketing, sales, graphic design, and public relations professionals. From the start, she attracted a steady stream of clients who relied on her ability to balance projects’ technical aspects with the strategic vision that energized her projects. hesketh.com quickly grew, becoming a technological extension of client-partner organizations and a complete, fully staffed digital design agency.
Andy Albright is the co-founder and President/CEO of National Agents Alliance, arguably the country’s largest and most successful insurance marketing organization specializing in life event marketing and sales. Albright has appeared in regional North Carolina magazines and newspapers, and his company NAA was selected from a pool of 35,000 area businesses as the North Carolina Triad’s Fastest Growing Company by Greensboro’s Triad Business Journal in 2007. He was named to the Triad’s 2011 Movers & Shakers list by Business Leader magazine, and has appeared on several national radio shows this year.
To his following of loyal independent insurance agents, it is Andy’s aggressive drive and dissatisfaction with the status quo continues to make National Agents Alliance a success. While most Americans are calling it a day, Albright can often be found making calls to his top managers during the midnight hour. His managers relish this time, and are willing to take calls from Albright at all hours of the night just to get that extra bit of personal advice and guidance. Albright has a strong desire to see his agency managers, often his best friends, succeed. To outsiders, his rugged and raw determination can be intimidating – but to those who are closest to him, his family, his top managers and his corporate executive team, know Albright has a masterful skill of motivating people to take action.
Andy Albright is a proud graduate of North Carolina State University, and is a published author of The 8 Steps to Success, which was released in July 2010. Albright, who just finished his second book, Millionaire Maker Manual, is involved with numerous charities and organizations. He is a member of the advisory board for N.C. State’s Entrepreneurship Initiative and a loyal follower of Wolfpack athletics and the Carolina Hurricanes. Andy Albright takes time away from work to speak to students at N.C. State a few times annually, and is also a motivational speaker for various groups and organizations like Keller Williams.
Andy Albright resides in his childhood home on 43 acres of beautiful countryside near Burlington, N.C. with his wife, Jane and two children, Haleigh (16) and Spencer (13). The Albrights enjoy traveling, attending sporting events, concerts and watching movies together.
Past speakers include John Norris*, President and CEO of Fuel Tech, Inc.; Steve Yauch*, President and Owner, Carolina Electronic Assemblers; Robert Young, founder of Lulu.com; Jim Goodnight*, CEO of SAS; Bill Nussey*, co-founder of DaVinci Systems, current CEO of Silverpop; Scot Wingo*, CEO of ChannelAdvisor; Thomas R. McPherson, Jr.*, former president and CEO of Hatteras Networks; Barbara Mulkey*, president and CEO of Mulkey Engineers & Consultants; Richard Holcomb*, current CEO and chairman of StrikeIron, former CEO and chairman of Haht Commerce; Nick England*, founder and current CEO of 3rd Tech, founder of Ikonas Graphics Systems, founder of Trancept Systems; Jerry Neal*, Bill Pratt and Powell Seymour, founders of RF Micro Devices; as well as business leaders Neal Hunter*, founder Cree, Inc., LED Lighting Fixtures, Inc.; Matthew Szulik, Chairman and CEO of Red Hat; Joseph Forbes, COO of Consert, Inc; Marshall Brain, Founder of How Stuff Works; Chris Evans*, Philanthropist & Entrepreneur; David Anderson*, co-founder of PeopleClick & David Gardner*, co-founder of PeopleClick; Peter Lehrer*, co-founder of Lehrer McGovern; Josh Whiton*, founder and CEO of TransLoc.
* NC State alumni
