The GYES Signature Podcast: Recent Episodes
Global Young Entrepreneur Society
President Daniel Gerlei of the Global Young Entrepreneur Society interviews high-level business leaders, academics, investors, and most importantly entrepreneurs.
The Global Young Entrepreneur Society (https://www.gyes.org/) is an international organization that supports exceptional young people in reaching their aspirations by giving them the platform for entrepreneurial growth.
Kawa Hassan is a distinguished figure in the realm of international relations and diplomacy, particularly regarding the Middle East and North Africa region. With a career spanning various high-profile roles, he has been instrumental in leading Track 1.5 and Track 2 diplomacy initiatives focused on trust-building, conflict prevention, and resolution. As a Nonresident Fellow at the Stimson Center, Kawa has a rich history of engagement in strategic projects and dialogues that have significantly contributed to regional stability. Kawa is currently a member of the NATO Mission Iraq Strategic Assessment Capability, where he provides valuable insights into the security dynamics of Iraq. Kawa was the Director of the Brussels office of the East West Institute and played a key role in establishing Stimson’s presence in Europe. He was a member of the Atlantic Council Taskforce on the future of Iraq. Kawa is a frequent contributor to the Financial Times, Washington Post, BBC, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Al Jazeera.The Global Young Entrepreneur Society (https://www.gyes.org/) is an international organization that supports exceptional young people in reaching their aspirations through giving the platform for entrepreneurial growth. President Daniel Gerlei alongside GYES colleagues hosts a publicly available Signature Interview every month.
Parag Khanna is a leading global strategy advisor, world traveler, and best-selling author. He is the founder and CEO of Climate Alpha, a company that helps investors and businesses adapt to climate change. He is also the founder and managing partner of FutureMap, a data and scenario based strategic advisory firm. He has written seven books on geopolitics, globalization, and the future of humanity, including The Future is Asian, How to Run the World, and MOVE. He has traveled to more than 150 countries and holds a PhD from the London School of Economics. He is a frequent contributor to CNN, TIME, and Fortune. He has provided expertise to many governments including the US, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, UK, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Norway, Finland, Italy, Estonia, Russia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Japan, China, India, Australia, South Korea, Pakistan, Indonesia, the Philippines, Mongolia, Bhutan, and numerous others. In 2016 he served on the Singapore government's Committee on the Future Economy. The Global Young Entrepreneur Society (https://www.gyes.org/) is an international organization that supports exceptional young people in reaching their aspirations through giving the platform for entrepreneurial growth. President Daniel Gerlei hosts a publicly available Signature Interview every month.
Upon graduating from Yale, where he received the Gordon Brown Memorial Prize awarded each year to the outstanding member of the Junior Class, and the Harvard Business School where he was named a Baker Scholar, Jack Perkowski spent 20 years on Wall Street, rising to head of Investment Banking at PaineWebber. Over the course of his career on Wall Street, Jack held a variety of positions in PaineWebber’s Investment Banking Division. He completed private placements, mergers and acquisitions and public offerings, rebuilt PaineWebber’s Real Estate Group after it was decimated by defections, and dramatically increased investment banking revenues as head of Investment Banking from 1985 to 1988. In 1987, Jack negotiated, and then renegotiated after the stock market collapse on Black Monday, October 19th, a $300 million equity infusion into PaineWebber by the Yasuda Life Insurance Company of Japan. In 1990, well before others recognized the significant role that China would play in the global economy, he spent three years investigating opportunities in Asia and China, leading to the founding of ASIMCO Technologies in 1994, a major industrial enterprise in China’s automotive industry, which he built and ran for fifteen years before it was sold to Bain Capital in 2009. Jack served as Chairman of ASIMCO’s Board of Directors and was Chief Executive Officer of the company from 1994 to 2008. Jack developed the strategy, raised the capital and assembled the management team that has enabled ASIMCO to become one of the most important players in China’s automotive components industry. Headquartered in Beijing with 12,000 employees throughout the country, ASIMCO is a unique foreign-invested company that was established specifically to serve the China market. ASIMCO operates 17 manufacturing facilities in China and has 52 sales offices throughout the country, as well as offices in the United States, Europe and Japan. ASIMCO derives 85 percent of its sales from China, its main market. Within China, ASIMCO has a dominant position in the commercial vehicle segment where up to 25 percent of the components used in a diesel engine made in the country may come from ASIMCO factories. Under Jack’s leadership, ASIMCO gained a reputation for developing local management and integrating a broad based China operation into the global economy. ASIMCO was three times named one of the “Ten Best Employers in China” in surveys conducted by Hewitt Associates and leading news organizations in Asia. In 2008, Jack was designated by China Auto News one of “30 Outstanding Entrepreneurs in China’s Auto Components Industry over the 30 Years of Economic Reform,” the only foreigner to receive this distinction. Jack serves on the China Advisory Council of Magna International Inc., one of the world’s largest auto suppliers; the Board of Advisers for the Center For Emerging Markets at Northeastern University in the United States; and the Board of Advisers of Transmetrics, Inc., a European logistics software company. He is the Chairman of the International Advisory Board of Management and Economics (IABME) at Tianjin University in China; the Non-Executive Chairman of OC3 Entertainment, Inc., a leading facial animation company; and the Non-Executive Chairman of Talkr, Inc., a creator of mobile phone applications. Jack also served on the Board of Directors and Chairman of the Special Committee of Fushi Copperweld, Inc., a leading bimetallic company that was listed on NASDAQ before taken private by its Chairman. Widely recognized as an expert on doing business in China, Jack authored Managing the Dragon: Building a Billion Dollar Business In China.The Global Young Entrepreneur Society (https://www.gyes.org/) is an international organization that supports exceptional young people in reaching their aspirations through giving the platform for entrepreneurial growth. President Daniel Gerlei hosts a publicly available Signature Interview every month.
Professor Bill O'Farrell of Columbia Business School is a 30-year veteran of the start-up world. He most recently co-founded and was CEO of Body Labs, Inc., a computer vision and AI company focused on 3D human body modeling. Body Labs was acquired by Amazon in 2017. Formerly, he was co-founder and CEO of such companies as SpeechWorks, acquired by Nuance, OpenAir.com, acquired by Netsuite, and the Company of Science & Art, which created the After Effects product line, acquired by Adobe. Bill is an Adjunct Professor at the Columbia Business School where he teaches “Launch Your Start-up.” Bill received his undergraduate degree from Brown University and a JD from Harvard Law School.The Global Young Entrepreneur Society (https://www.gyes.org/) is an international organization that supports exceptional young people in reaching their aspirations through giving the platform for entrepreneurial growth. President Daniel Gerlei and a national/regional GYES Director host a publicly available Signature Interview every month.
Paul Fox is a Co-Founder and the Chief Strategy Officer of Evie Networks, an infrastructure company for the future of electrified transportation. Evie is building Australia’s largest electric vehicle charging network for private and public charging. Paul has been an entrepreneur and investor in clean energy for over 20 years in Australia and Silicon Valley. He had previous roles at AGL Energy, Southern Cross Ventures, the California Clean Energy Fund, Flextronics and the United Nations. He has held multiple board and advisory roles at high growth and technology companies in Australia and the USA.The Global Young Entrepreneur Society (https://www.gyes.org/) is an international organization that supports exceptional young people in reaching their aspirations through giving the platform for entrepreneurial growth. President Daniel Gerlei and a national/regional GYES Director host a publicly available Signature Interview every month.
Dr. Adam Posen is the President of the Peterson Institute for International Economics. Under his leadership, the Peterson Institute has earned global recognition as the leading independent think tank in international economics. Dr. Posen's influential work spans monetary and fiscal policies, European integration, and US-China relations. He co-authored the groundbreaking work “Inflation Targeting" with eminent economists like Ben Bernanke. He served as an external voting member of the Bank of England's interest rate-setting Monetary Policy Committee, where he was a leading voice globally for active policy response to the financial crisis. The Atlantic named him in its line-up of global "Superstar Central Bankers" and he was made an honorary Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Dr. Posen has also served seven terms on the Panel of Economic Advisers to the US Congressional Budget Office. He received the Order of the Rising Sun from the government of Japan in 2021 for his distinguished achievements in advancing US-Japanese economic relations. With prestigious affiliations including the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission, and as an Agenda Contributor at the World Economic Forum, Dr. Posen's expertise makes him a sought-after adviser to global policymakers and investors.
The Global Young Entrepreneur Society (https://www.gyes.org/) is an international organization that supports exceptional young people in reaching their aspirations through giving the platform for entrepreneurial growth. President Daniel Gerlei and the Director of GYES's UK Operations, Lewis Swire, host a publicly available Signature Interview every month.
Ben Nelson is the Founder of the Minerva Project and Minerva University. Ben is a visionary entrepreneur with the aim of transforming higher education. Ben established Minerva University in 2012 using $25 million in venture funding from Benchmark Capital. Students learn an innovative curriculum through proprietary video conferencing software while living in 7 different cities around the world over the course of a 4 year bachelor's degree. Minerva is recognized as the most competitive university in the world with a 1% acceptance rate which is lower than Harvard. Before founding Minerva, Ben helped build and eventually became the CEO of a startup called Snapfish, where he helped build the company from startup to the world’s largest personal publishing service.
The Global Young Entrepreneur Society (https://www.gyes.org/) is an international organization that supports exceptional young people in reaching their aspirations through giving the platform for entrepreneurial growth. President Daniel Gerlei and the Director of GYES's UK Operations, Lewis Swire, host a publicly available Signature Interview every month.
The Honorable Dr. Nadia Schadlow began her career at the Pentagon as the Country Director for Ukraine, a role in which she established the US relationship with the newly formed Ukrainian Ministry of Defense. Dr. Schadlow was the primary author of the 2017 US National Security Strategy, achieving the full endorsement across all Cabinet Secretaries. She delivered the National Security Strategy to Congress in the record breaking time of just 9 months. Dr. Schadlow is a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute and a Visiting Fellow at The Hoover Institution at Stanford University. She is a frequent contributor to the Wall Street Journal and Foreign Policy Magazine. She is also a full member of the Council on Foreign Relations.The Global Young Entrepreneur Society (https://www.gyes.org/) is an international organization that supports exceptional young people in reaching their aspirations through giving the platform for entrepreneurial growth. President Daniel Gerlei and the Director of GYES's UK Operations, Lewis Swire, host a publicly available Signature Interview every month.
Brenden Schaefer is the Founder of Bright Foods, a refrigerated nutrition bar company which he sold to BLD Capital in 2021. Bright Foods secured distribution in Whole Foods and Sprouts and grew to become the number 2 brand in the category in just 18 months. Brenden is a former longtime Pepsi Executive where he was the Brand Manager of Naked Juice which he grew to 600 million dollars in sales, making it the highest growth brand in Pepsi’s US Portfolio. Brenden has managed marketing budgets ranging from less than 100 thousand to 30 million dollars.The Global Young Entrepreneur Society (https://www.gyes.org/) is an international organization that supports exceptional young people in reaching their aspirations through giving the platform for entrepreneurial growth. President Daniel Gerlei and the Director of GYES's UK Operations, Lewis Swire, host a publicly available Signature Interview every month.
Deep tech serial entrepreneur, Dr. Jules Hammond, is the Co-founder and CEO of BeFC (https://befc.global/), a company developing biofuel powered paper batteries. The company has received numerous prestigious awards and in 2020 secured a 3 million Euro Seed round. As of 2022, the company is closing an 18 million Euro series A round to fund international expansion and commercialization. Keep up with BeFC on Twitter: https://twitter.com/BeFC_global?s=20
The Global Young Entrepreneur Society (https://www.gyes.org/) is an international organization that supports exceptional young people in reaching their aspirations through giving the platform for entrepreneurial growth. President Daniel Gerlei and the Director of GYES's UK Operations, Lewis Swire, host a publicly available Signature Interview every month.
Stephan Morais is a co-founder and the Managing Partner of Indico Capital Partners, the largest venture capital firm in Portugal with over 100 million euros across three funds. After completing his MBA at Harvard Business School, Stephan was appointed as consultant to the Portuguese Government for the privatization of a main State investing conglomerate, IPE, and for the draft of the country's National Energy policy. In 2006, Stephan was invited to invest in, and lead as CEO, Temahome, a major Portuguese furniture design and manufacturing company. Stephan was the first Portuguese person to be named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. In 2010, Stephan joined Portugal's largest bank, Grupo Caixa Bank, where he was appointed as board member and deputy CEO of a new African investment bank based in Mozambique, BNI. He also served as executive director of Caixa Capital, one of the largest and most international private equity and venture capital operators in Iberia, managing over 90 billion Euros in funds. Stephan is an Entrepreneurship Expert with the Entrepreneurship Center at Said Business School at the University of Oxford, an Advisory Board Member of global executive search firm, Amrop, the President of the Harvard Club of Portugal, and a juror at numerous entrepreneurship and investment awards.
The Global Young Entrepreneur Society (https://www.gyes.org/) is an international organization that supports exceptional young people in reaching their aspirations through giving the platform for entrepreneurial growth. President Daniel Gerlei and the Director of GYES's UK Operations, Lewis Swire, host a publicly available Signature Interview every month.
Thierry Malleret is the Founder and Managing Partner of the Monthly Barometer. The Monthly Barometer is an analytical and predictive newsletter on macro issues for high-level decision makers. Thierry founded the Monthly Barometer Summit of Minds which is a series of high-level meetings that combine hard thinking on major macro issues and the importance of personal well-being and the power of nature. Thierry has been the Chief Economist and Strategist of a major Russian investment bank and an Economist of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. He spent three years working for the French Prime Minister in Paris. Thierry founded and headed the Global Risk Network of the World Economic Forum and for a number of years was responsible for the programme of the annual meeting at Davos. Today, Thierry is an Agenda Contributor at the World Economic Forum. His latest books, COVID-19: The Great Reset and The Great Narrative: For a Better Future, co-written with World Economic Forum Founder and Executive Chairman, Klaus Schwab, have been translated into multiple languages and The Great Reset is an international best seller. He holds two MAs (in Economics and History) and a PhD in Economics.
The Global Young Entrepreneur Society (https://www.gyes.org/) is an international organization that supports exceptional young people in reaching their aspirations through giving the platform for entrepreneurial growth. President Daniel Gerlei and the Director of GYES's UK Operations, Lewis Swire, host a publicly available Signature Interview every month.
The guest of our latest interview was Martin Cubbon, a Director on the Board of John Swire & Sons, the parent company of the Swire Group. The Swire Group is a 200-year-old diversified global conglomerate with over 100,000 employees. The Group’s diversified portfolio of businesses spans from Cathay Pacific Airlines, the flag carrier airline of Hong Kong, to Swire Coca-Cola, which has the exclusive right to manufacture, market, and distribute over 60 beverage brands, including all the brands of the Coca-Cola company, to 762 million people. Martin was for several decades in senior roles with the group in Hong Kong, primarily as Finance Director of Swire Pacific (with oversight of all Swire Pacific businesses - aviation, property, marine, and beverages), and eventually became the Chief Executive of Swire Properties, a leading property developer with investments across Hong Kong, the Chinese Mainland, Singapore and the US. Martin is also a non-executive director on the board of Bud Asia Pacific. Bud Asia Pacific is a subsidiary of AB InBev, which owns most of the world's major beer companies including Budweiser and Corona.
The Global Young Entrepreneur Society (https://www.gyes.org/) is an international organization that supports exceptional young people in reaching their aspirations through giving the platform for entrepreneurial growth. President Daniel Gerlei and the Director of GYES's UK Operations, Lewis Swire, host a publicly available Signature Interview every month.
Professor Hermann Simon is the Founder and Honorary Chairman of Simon-Kucher & Partners. Simon-Kucher & Partners is the world’s leading pricing consultancy firm with 45 offices in 30 countries. Before committing himself entirely to management consulting, Professor Simon was a professor of business administration and marketing at the Universities of Mainz and Bielefeld. He was also a visiting professor at Harvard Business School, Stanford Graduate School of Business, London Business School, INSEAD, Keio University in Tokyo and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Professor Simon has published over 35 books in 27 languages, including the worldwide bestsellers Hidden Champions and Power Pricing, as well as Manage for Profit, Not for Market Share. His latest books are Hidden Champions in the Chinese Century, True Profit, and his auto-biography, Many Worlds, One Life, a Journey from the Farmhouse to the Global Stage. The Hermann Simon Business School in China is named after him. He coined the term Hidden Champions, companies that have become global market leaders in their respective industries, yet have remained unknown to the public. His Hidden Champions books have sold over a million copies in China alone. The Chinese Government has called Professor Simon a management mastermind and has allocated a budget of 1.3 billion dollars for a program that has the aim of creating 1000 Hidden Champions.
The Global Young Entrepreneur Society (https://www.gyes.org/) is an international organization that supports exceptional young people in reaching their aspirations through giving the platform for entrepreneurial growth. President Daniel Gerlei and the Director of GYES's UK Operations, Lewis Swire, host a publicly available Signature Interview every month.
Professor Leonard Schlesinger is Baker Foundation Professor at the Harvard Business School where he serves as Chair of the School’s Practice based faculty. He served as President of Babson College from 2008-2013, was Vice Chairman and Chief Operating Officer at Limited Brands (which was at one point the parent company of Abercrombie and Fitch, Bath and Body Works, and Victoria’s Secret) was a Professor of Sociology and Public Policy and Senior Vice President and Counselor to the President at Brown University, and was Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at major café chain Au Bon Pain. He is the author or co-author of 13 books, the most recent one being “What Great Service Leaders Know and Do”. He has served on the editorial boards of five major academic journals and has published numerous management case studies that have sold well over one million copies. Professor Schlesinger has lectured and consulted on strategy, service quality, customer satisfaction, entrepreneurship, human resources and organizational change for over 250 major corporations, non-profit organizations, governments, and international leadership organizations around the world. Professor Schlesinger currently serves as a Director of RH, Inc., and the DP Acquisition Corporation. He serves on the Advisory Boards of The College for Social Innovation and Datapoint Capital. He also serves as an advisory council member of Goldman Sachs' 10,000 Small Businesses Initiative, and as a member of both the Council on Competitiveness and the Council on Foreign Relations. Schlesinger holds a Doctor of Business Administration from Harvard Business School, an MBA from Columbia University, a Bachelor of Arts in American Civilization from Brown University and an Honorary Doctor of Laws from Babson College.
The Global Young Entrepreneur Society (https://www.gyes.org/) is an international organization that supports exceptional young people in reaching their aspirations through giving the platform for entrepreneurial growth. President Daniel Gerlei and the Director of GYES's UK Operations, Lewis Swire, host a publicly available Signature Interview every month.
Professor Tom Eisenmann of Harvard Business School discussed Why Startups Fail with President Daniel Gerlei of the Global Young Entrepreneur Society. Professor Eisenmann is the Faculty Chair of the Harvard Innovation Labs, and Faculty Co-Chair of the HBS Rock Center for Entrepreneurship, the Harvard MS/MBA Program, and the Harvard College Technology Innovation Fellows Program. Professor Eisenmann received his Doctorate in Business Administration, BA, and MBA from Harvard University. Prior to entering the HBS Doctoral Program, Professor Eisenmann spent eleven years as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company, where he was co-head of the Media and Entertainment Practice. He currently serves as a director on the board of Harvard Business Publishing. Over the past 24 years at Harvard Business School, Professor Eisenmann has helped launch thousands of startups, an astonishing 13 of these have reached valuations of over one billion dollars.
The Global Young Entrepreneur Society (https://www.gyes.org/) is an international organization that supports exceptional young people in reaching their aspirations through giving the platform for entrepreneurial growth. President Daniel Gerlei hosts a publicly available Signature Interview every month.
Andreas Behrendt is a partner in McKinsey & Company's Cologne office and is active in the Operations Practice. He especially drives innovation in applying advanced analytics to the manufacturing environment to solve productivity and quality issues or to improve demand forecasting and scheduling. Prior to joining McKinsey in 2009, he gained extensive experience in production technology and process development at a worldwide automotive and industry supplier. At McKinsey, Andreas focuses his client work on industrial clients mainly in automotive and machinery.
The Global Young Entrepreneur Society (https://www.gyes.org/) is an international organization that supports exceptional young people in reaching their aspirations through giving the platform for entrepreneurial growth. President Daniel Gerlei hosts a publicly available Signature Interview every month.
Geoffrey Moore is an author, speaker, and advisor who splits his consulting time between start-up companies in the Mohr Davidow and Wildcat Venture Partners portfolios and established high-tech enterprises, most recently including Salesforce, Microsoft, Autodesk, F5Networks, Gainsight, Google, and Splunk. Moore’s life’s work has focused on the market dynamics surrounding disruptive innovations. His first book, Crossing the Chasm, focuses on the challenges start-up companies face transitioning from early adopting to mainstream customers. It has sold more than a million copies, and its third edition has been revised such that the majority of its examples and case studies reference companies come to prominence from the past decade. Moore’s most recent work, Zone to Win, addresses the challenge large enterprises face when embracing disruptive innovations, even when it is in their best interests to do so. It’s time to stop explaining why they don’t and start explaining how they can. This has been the basis of much of his recent consulting. Moore has a bachelors in American literature from Stanford University and a PhD in English literature from the University of Washington. After teaching English for four years at Olivet College, he came back to the Bay Area with his wife and family and began a career in high tech as a training specialist. Over time he transitioned first into sales and then into marketing, finally finding his niche in marketing consulting, working first at Regis McKenna Inc, then with the three firms he helped found: The Chasm Group, Chasm Institute, and TCG Advisors. Today he is chairman emeritus of all three.
The Global Young Entrepreneur Society (https://www.gyes.org/) is an international organization that supports exceptional young people in reaching their aspirations through giving the platform for entrepreneurial growth. President Daniel Gerlei hosts a publicly available Signature Interview every month.
Professor Bill O'Farrell of Columbia Business School is a 30-year veteran of the start-up world. He most recently co-founded and was CEO of Body Labs, Inc., a computer vision and AI company focused on 3D human body modeling. Body Labs was acquired by Amazon in 2017. Formerly, he was co-founder and CEO of such companies as SpeechWorks, acquired by Nuance, OpenAir.com, acquired by Netsuite, and the Company of Science & Art, which created the After Effects product line, acquired by Adobe. Bill is an Adjunct Professor at the Columbia Business School where he teaches “Launch Your Start-up.” Bill received his undergraduate degree from Brown University and a JD from Harvard Law School.
The Global Young Entrepreneur Society (https://www.gyes.org/) is an international organization that supports exceptional young people in reaching their aspirations through giving the platform for entrepreneurial growth. President Daniel Gerlei hosts a publicly available Signature Interview every month.
David is the Eugene O’Kelly II Senior Lecturer Emeritus in Leadership at Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he helped develop Interpersonal Dynamics (“Touchy Feely”) as well as much of the School’s leadership curriculum. He is the author of numerous books, including Managing for Excellence, Influence Without Authority, and Power Up. He also has consulted and conducted executive programs to a variety of organizations in the for-profit and not-for-profit sector, including Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Cisco Systems, Levi Strauss & Co., Roche Pharmaceutical, Raychem, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. In addition, Dr. Bradford has been involved with educational innovation at the college level. He was the founder of The Organizational Behavior Teaching Society and the first editor of their journal. He received the Exemplar of Excellence in Education award from The University of Phoenix. Dr. Bradford is on the editorial board of The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, The Journal of Management Education, and The Academy of Management Learning and Education. Learn more about "Connect: Building Exceptional Relationships with Family, Friends, and Colleagues" at https://connectandrelate.com/. The Global Young Entrepreneur Society (https://www.gyes.org/) is an international organization that supports exceptional young people in reaching their aspirations through giving the platform for entrepreneurial growth. President Daniel Gerlei hosts a publicly available Signature Interview every month.
Dominic Ill co-founded a business at just 15 years old. Today, Mimodo AG's Tuki Learning Tower is sold in over 25 stores. Find out more about the tower at https://www.lernturm.ch/. Read about Dominic's story in the recent Blick Switzerland article: https://www.blick.ch/wirtschaft/aarga...
The Global Young Entrepreneur Society (https://www.gyes.org/) is an international organization that supports exceptional young people in reaching their aspirations through giving the platform for entrepreneurial growth.
Ken Finnegan is the CEO of Tangent, Trinity's Ideas Workspace.
Tangent encompasses a number of activities that contribute to Trinity College Dublin's mission to deliver economic, cultural and social value through innovation and entrepreneurship. Tangent aims to bridge the gap between the university and the wider start-up ecosystem. It collaborates with companies large and small who play an active role working with Tangent start-ups, students, and educational and training programs.
The Global Young Entrepreneur Society (https://www.gyes.org/) is an international organization that supports exceptional young people in reaching their aspirations through giving the platform for entrepreneurial growth. President Daniel Gerlei hosts a publicly available Signature Interview every month.
Upon graduating from Yale, where he received the Gordon Brown Memorial Prize awarded each year to the outstanding member of the Junior Class, and the Harvard Business School where he was named a Baker Scholar, Jack Perkowski spent 20 years on Wall Street, rising to head of Investment Banking at PaineWebber. Over the course of his career on Wall Street, Jack held a variety of positions in PaineWebber’s Investment Banking Division. He completed private placements, mergers and acquisitions and public offerings, rebuilt PaineWebber’s Real Estate Group after it was decimated by defections, and dramatically increased investment banking revenues as head of Investment Banking from 1985 to 1988. In 1987, Jack negotiated, and then renegotiated after the stock market collapse on Black Monday, October 19th, a $300 million equity infusion into PaineWebber by the Yasuda Life Insurance Company of Japan. In 1990, well before others recognized the significant role that China would play in the global economy, he spent three years investigating opportunities in Asia and China, leading to the founding of ASIMCO Technologies in 1994, a major industrial enterprise in China’s automotive industry, which he built and ran for fifteen years before it was sold to Bain Capital in 2009. Jack served as Chairman of ASIMCO’s Board of Directors and was Chief Executive Officer of the company from 1994 to 2008. Jack developed the strategy, raised the capital and assembled the management team that has enabled ASIMCO to become one of the most important players in China’s automotive components industry. Headquartered in Beijing with 12,000 employees throughout the country, ASIMCO is a unique foreign-invested company that was established specifically to serve the China market. ASIMCO operates 17 manufacturing facilities in China and has 52 sales offices throughout the country, as well as offices in the United States, Europe and Japan. ASIMCO derives 85 percent of its sales from China, its main market. Within China, ASIMCO has a dominant position in the commercial vehicle segment where up to 25 percent of the components used in a diesel engine made in the country may come from ASIMCO factories. Under Jack’s leadership, ASIMCO gained a reputation for developing local management and integrating a broad based China operation into the global economy. ASIMCO was three times named one of the “Ten Best Employers in China” in surveys conducted by Hewitt Associates and leading news organizations in Asia. In 2008, Jack was designated by China Auto News one of “30 Outstanding Entrepreneurs in China’s Auto Components Industry over the 30 Years of Economic Reform,” the only foreigner to receive this distinction. Jack serves on the China Advisory Council of Magna International Inc., one of the world’s largest auto suppliers; the Board of Advisers for the Center For Emerging Markets at Northeastern University in the United States; and the Board of Advisers of Transmetrics, Inc., a European logistics software company. He is the Chairman of the International Advisory Board of Management and Economics (IABME) at Tianjin University in China; the Non-Executive Chairman of OC3 Entertainment, Inc., a leading facial animation company; and the Non-Executive Chairman of Talkr, Inc., a creator of mobile phone applications. Jack also served on the Board of Directors and Chairman of the Special Committee of Fushi Copperweld, Inc., a leading bimetallic company that was listed on NASDAQ before taken private by its Chairman. Jack has also written numerous articles on China and doing business in the country for the Far Eastern Economic Review, AmCham’s China Brief, Forbes Magazine, BusinessForum China, Huffington Post and other publications.
Matt Abrahams is a passionate, collaborative and innovative educator, author, and coach. He is a lecturer at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business where he teaches two very popular classes in Strategic Communication and Effective Virtual Presenting. He recently received Stanford GSB’s Alumni Teaching Award in recognition of his valued service to teaching Stanford Alumni around the world. In addition to his teaching, Matt is co-founder of Bold Echo Communication Solutions, an industry-leading presentation consulting and coaching practice. Matt's lecture, Think Fast, Talk Smart (https://youtu.be/HAnw168huqA), has been viewed over 23 million times. Matt is especially interested in applying communication knowledge to real-world issues. In service of this goal, he published Speaking Up Without Freaking Out, which is now in its 3rd edition. His book was written to help people present and communicate in a more confident, connected, and compelling manner. Prior to teaching, Matt held senior leadership positions at several software companies, where he created and ran global learning and development organizations. Matt received his undergraduate degree in psychology from Stanford University, his graduate degree in communication studies from the University of California at Davis, and his secondary education teaching credential from San Francisco State University. He is a prolific writer with general public articles published on for GSB Insights, Toastmasters Magazine, Inc.com, Quartz, etc. He has also published several research articles on cognitive planning, persuasion, and interpersonal communication. He is a member of the Management Communication Association (where he received a “Rising Star” award) as well as the National and Western States Communication Associations. The Global Young Entrepreneur Society (https://www.gyes.org/) is an international organization that supports exceptional young people in reaching their aspirations through giving the platform for entrepreneurial growth. President Daniel Gerlei hosts a publicly available Signature Interview every month.
Mark Bowden is the co-founder of TRUTHPLANE®, his communication training company that offers a unique methodology for anyone who has to communicate with impact to an audience. He uses his system of cutting-edge and effective nonverbal communication techniques to instantly help people become more confident, collaborative, and credible in their communication – invaluable for anyone in leadership, sales, teams, politics, media and beyond. He also delivers presentation training for the #1 EMBA in Canada with Kellogg-Schulich, and is president of the Canadian National Communication Coach Association. A go-to commentator for world media on the body language of leading politicians and public figures, Mark appears regularly on news and talk shows for CNN, CTV, CBC, Global and has been quoted in The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and GQ Magazine. A world-renowned body-language thought-leader, Mark’s publications are the bestselling books, Winning Body Language — a “how-to guide” to using body language to stand out, win trust, and gain credibility when speaking; Winning Body Language for Sales Professionals; and Tame the Primitive Brain: 28 Ways in 28 Days to Manage the Most Impulsive Behaviors At Work. His latest book, TRUTH & LIES: What People are Really Thinking is a Globe and Mail Canadian bestseller, described by FBI interrogator and counterintelligence agent Joe Navarro as, “a remarkable book… this year’s must-read on body language and human behavior.” Mark’s work is consistently invaluable to sales and leadership teams, CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, and prime ministers of G7 powers. His highly acclaimed TEDx talk has reached millions of people, and he has presented to many of the biggest, coolest, and most innovative organizations in the world, including Shopify, Dell, Viacom, RBC, Fidelity, Amex, Unilever, Daimler, Microsoft, Toyota, VW, Samsung, KPMG, GSK, Walmart, Nestle, and even Real Madrid.
The Global Young Entrepreneur Society (https://www.gyes.org/) is an international organization that supports exceptional young people in reaching their aspirations through giving the platform for entrepreneurial growth.