Michael D. Solomon Speaker Series

The Michael D. Solomon Lecture Series in Entrepreneurship is made possible by a gift from Michael D.Solomon, 1974 graduate of the College of Business at Kent State University.  Through Mr. Solomon's generous gift, entrepreneurs are bought to campus to share their experience and students have the opportunity to connect with the world of business and entrepreneurship outside of the classroom.

Entrepreneurs from the community address the audience in both a lecture and Q & A format.  Former guests include:

• Founder and President Holly Harlan, an entrepreneur, engineer, and economic and business development specialist for over 25 years, works with entrepreneurial leaders in business, NGO`s, government and academia to implement sustainability principles into product, service, process and community designs. She is especially skilled at and fond of creating and leading learning communities that embrace the implementation of sustainability principles. From the beginning of her career as an engineer with General Electric and John Deere, she has been trained as a change agent. Today she helps leaders discover the changes that will enhance their business's ability to thrive in a healthy environment, while maintaining or restoring the quality and quantity of natural resources remaining for future generations. As an intern at Rocky Mountain Institute in 2000 she learned the basics of Natural Capitalism and has attended several workshops to learn Cradle to Cradle Design with McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry. She has learned the most about implementing sustainabilty principles from working on projects with the members of the E4S Network that she started in 2000.
• Named in Forbes Magazine's "Midas 100 List" as one of the most influential investors in technology, Rangaswami has been a strategic advisor to several fast-growing companies. Profiled in the Wall Street Journal, he has held global vice president of marketing position at Baan Company, Avalon Software and Oracle Corporation. He holds an MBA from Kent State University.