We offer a wide range of topics for our entrepreneurial members. Following is a partial listing of our past events:
Federal Reserve Economic Outlook
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Monday, May 20, 2013 |
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Speaker: William A Strauss, Senior Economist and Economic Advisor, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
Presentation: Review of actual and expected economic data from the beginning of the "Great Recession" through 2014.
Healthcare Issues For Entrepreneurs
Monday, April 15, 2013
As the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act proceeds to its full implementation in 2014, how is it likely to affect the healthcare system? What changes will occur in the local insurance marketplace? How can businesses most effectively structure their employee health benefit packages? Following legislative and judicial actions, are policy outcomes pre-determined or still open to adjustment? Learn more about these and other issues related to one of the most consequential public initiatives of the last 50 years holding significant implications for a key category of business expenditure, especially for small and growing firms.
Panelists:
Alex Morozov, Director - Global Healthcare Equity Research at Morningstar
Daniel Yunker, CEO, Land of Lincoln Heath, Inc.
Laura Minzer, Illinois State Chamber of Commerce
Monday, March 18, 2013
You and your team have spent months, maybe years preparing for an opportunity like this, and it has finally arrived. There is only one major obstacle remaining, but it’s a big one – money. How is your team going to finance this fantastic opportunity?
Come to the Entrepreneurial Roundtable on March 18th and learn about Financing Your Deals from a panel of financing experts:
Mr. Katcha has been involved in private equity investing, mergers, and acquisitions for over 20 years. He will provide our lead and longest talk of the evening, since equity is often the basis on which the rest of the equity, debt, new management, or other elements of a deal become possible.
- Ron Kirschner, M.D., MBA, President, Heartland Angels – Venture Capital
Heartland Angels is an open network of individuals looking to assist seed and early stage companies in obtaining investment capital and in furthering their innovations.
- Mark Gross, Senior Advisor, Wincreek Financial – Commercial Real Estate Bridge Loans
Wincreek offers a full range of commercial real estate bridge loans to meet your unique financing needs. They finance bridge loans nationwide from a minimum of $1,000,000 to the maximum of $100,000,000.
- Robert McMillan, Jr., President, Freeman Funding Solutions – Factoring,
…and purchase of a wide variety of income streams or future payments such as Asset Based Credit Lines, Delinquent Commercial Debt, Commercial Debt Management, Equipment Leases, International Receivables, Medical Receivables, and Purchase Orders.
Rob is a business community leader, having served as past Presidents of the Aurora Chamber of Commerce and the African-American Chamber of Commerce.
How to Buy Or Sell A Business
Monday, Feb 18, 2013
Buying or selling a business is a process that most business owners only go through once. You need the assistance of people who have helped many others in similar deals to get the full value you could expect (6x EBITDA or more, instead of 1 or 2X) from your sale, if you are a seller – and to make sure your due diligence and documents get you a business worth what you are paying for it, if you are a buyer. You also need to know how to finance your deals.
The February 18th panel will include a CEO who has successfully made acquisitions, a business broker who has helped many companies obtain full value for their assets, an organization expert who can tell you want needs to be done to get your company ready for sale, and a community banker who knows what is needed to qualify for government-guaranteed loans to buy a business, and whose bank has funds available to lend.
The Expert Panel:
Pat Grandle, Sunbelt Business Advisers: How to work with a broker to buy or sell a business.
Colleen Ryan, Leaders Bank Naperville: Financing the purchase with an SBA Loan.
Ellen Huxtable, ABC Business Concepts, Batavia: Preparing your business for sale.
John A. Swanson, COO, Proactive Worldwide, Inc., (Booth MBA ’98), has completed 19 Merger, Acquisition and Divestiture transactions with valuations of up to $32 Billion. In1998 he co-founded a medical device implant company, raised over $12M in investment funds and sold the company in 2003 to CR Bard for $39M.
Defending Your Brand: How Smart Companies Use Defensive Strategy to Deal with Competitive Attacks
Monday, Jan 21, 2013
Hear award-winning Kellogg professor Tim Calkins delve into the shadowy world of defensive strategy, talking about his new book Defending Your Brand: How Smart Companies Use Defensive Strategy to Deal with Competitive Attacks. He will discuss why successful companies need to have a defensive strategy, must be looking out for competitive threats, and should be prepared to defend their brand.
Business Success through Social Networking: The Foiled Cupcakes Story
Monday, Dec 17, 2012
Serial entrepreneur Mari Luangrath used her expertise in social networking and marketing to build Foiled Cupcakes into the leading online cupcake service in Chicagoland. Now, she is looking to sell her customized cupcake service nationwide.
Mari has always been passionate about bringing people together. With Foiled Cupcakes which is her third entrepreneurial venture, Mari has again demonstrated her ability to grow a new business using online networks and word-of-mouth marketing. Foiled Cupcakes surpassed its annual revenue goals by 600%, attributed entirely to her social media activities (on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn) and blogging.
Roasting Coffee & Employing Ex-Cons: The Story of Second Chance Coffee
Monday, Nov 19, 2012
“I Have a Bean” is the premium brand of coffee made and sold by Second Chance Coffee Co. As people experience the exceptional taste of the “I Have a Bean Coffee” coffees, the company’s reputation has spread. But most people do not know what else the company does – it employs ex-convicts and helps them turn their lives around. Come to sample this extraordinary coffee and hear Pete Leonard, President and Co-Founder, talk about how he and his team have turned an idea to help ex-cons into a successful business enterprise.
Learn From Founder of Successful Federally-Funded Research Company
Monday, Oct 15, 2012
For three decades, Don Yuhas has led an R&D company that has landed a variety of federal grants including Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grants for the military.
Hear Don explain what it is like to run Industrial Measurement Systems (IMS), which employs teams of scientists and engineers doing research on leading-edge technologies. IMS has been a leader in developing computer simulations and unique non-destructive testing and measurement instruments. These developments have led to advances in such varied areas as electronics (printed circuit boards) and automotive (friction materials).
Learn about SBIRs and how IMS has been able to obtain federal grants for projects for the Navy (remotely measuring temperatures inside naval guns), the Air Force and other agencies.
The Pampered Chef Story: From Home Basement to Berkshire Hathaway
Monday, Sep 17, 2012
Doris Christopher is the epitome of an American entrepreneur. She founded The Pampered Chef in the basement of her home in River Forest, Illinois in 1980. Today, The Pampered Chef is a multi-million dollar international company with more than 60,000 Independent Consultants worldwide and is a member of the Berkshire Hathaway family of businesses.
For more than thirty years, The Pampered Chef and its sales force of Independent Consultants have been helping families prepare delicious meals with a product line of more than 300 offerings – from entertaining to cookware, cutlery to cookbooks, stoneware to pantry items. Capitalizing on her knowledge of food preparation and her passion for teaching, Doris amassed an inventory of what she considered to be the essential home kitchen tools and began showcasing them at in-home cooking demonstrations.
Christopher will share her story and experience with starting a business to creating a succession plan.
What I Learned From Starting Three Businesses And Teaching Entrepreneurs
Monday, Aug 20, 2012
Jim Vahle has been one of the Roundtable’s most popular speakers. Jim not only knows the theory, he has started three businesses and understands the practical, gritty side of business. He is an engaging speaker who will provide you with a dozen practical tips and insights that you can apply to your business tomorrow.
Jim will talk about three topics (and perhaps several more):
- How to find ideas for starting a business
- Key things every entrepreneur should know – but most often forget
- The hardest things to get entrepreneurs to understand about starting a business
Podcast: Click here to watch video recording
A Capitalism For The People:Recapturing The Lost Genius Of American Prosperity
Monday, July 16, 2012
Int his election year, hear Professor Luigi Zingales of the Chicago Booth School of Business explain why “the American Dream” is disappearing and what we must do to save the system that made the United States the envy of the world. In his new book, A CAPITALISM FOR THE PEOPLE: Recapturing the Lost Genius of American Prosperity, Zingales cuts through the liberal–conservative, Democrat–Republican rhetoric. “What is necessary is nothing less than a rethinking of traditional political categories,” according to Zingales.
In ACAPITALISM FOR THE PEOPLE, Professor Zingales examines the roots of the recent economic and political crises, from cronyism between big business and government, to the deleterious effects of lobbying and government subsidies, to the uneasy alliance between academic economists and the industries they analyze.