Series of speakers to provide
insights on startups, family businesses
MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — MTSU’s Jennings A.
Jones College of Business is again hosting a series of events and guest
speakers to promote entrepreneurship by sharing insights and concepts to help
students, faculty, staff and the wider community turn their ideas into a
marketplace reality.
This
year’s Global Entrepreneurship Week activities run Nov. 13-16, highlighted by a
keynote address Tuesday, Nov. 14, by Gina “Gigi” Butler, the Nashville
entrepreneur who went from cleaning houses to founding the highly successful
Gigi’s Cupcakes franchise.
Butler
will speak from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Nov. 14 in the Student Union Ballroom.
She will share lessons from her journey of moving from California to Nashville
in 1994 with $500 to her name, working a variety of jobs from waitressing to
singing/songwriting to cleaning, before jumping into the gourmet cupcake
business almost a decade ago with $33 in her bank account.
Success
led to franchising the brand, now with over 100 Gigi’s Cupcakes locations in 23
states and growing. Along the way, she even appeared on the CBS reality program
“Undercover Boss” in 2015. Learn more about her success story at www.gigibutler.com.
“Global
Entrepreneurship Week is a great week for students to see entrepreneurship
firsthand, to see people that have experienced it, that have started their own
businesses,” said Stacy Aaron, administrative assistant in the Department of
Management and coordinator of this year’s GEW activities.
•
Kicking off the week will be Sarah Nuse, founder and CEO of Tippi Toes Dance
Company, who will give a public talk from 12:45 to 1:45 p.m. Monday, Nov. 13,
in the Student Union Ballroom.
The
Bowling Green, Kentucky, resident created a franchise that offers dance and
creative movement classes to child care centers, schools, play groups and
various after school programs. Nuse, who appeared on the popular TV program
“Shark Tank” a few years ago, has spread the franchise into 10 states since its
founding in 1999.
•
The MTSU Entrepreneurship Fair for high school students will be held from 9
a.m. to 1 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 15, in the Student Union Ballroom. Guest speaker
will be John Bosworth, Music for Youth, at 11:30 a.m. in the Student Union
Ballroom.
Students
from Rutherford County high schools as well as from some schools in surrounding
counties have been invited to pitch their business plans and ideas and set up
displays that will be judged by faculty and business people that day under a
variety of categories.
“It’s
a really great thing for high schoolers to be involved with to get interested
in entrepreneurship and thinking about business,” Aaron said. “So before they
graduate high school, they get an idea if this is something they’d be
interested in.”
•
Aaron will be joined by Kristen Shanine, an assistant professor in the
Department of Management, in hosting a Business Plan
Competition Informational Session set for 11 a.m. to noon Thursday, Nov.
16, in the Business and Aerospace Building’s SunTrust Room, BAS S326.
The
session will outline the process for entering the annual Business Plan
Competition held each spring and is open to students and alumni. Winners in the
competition can win cash prizes to launch their startup ideas.
• Speaker
Greg Lewis, CEO of the Nashville-based Tennessee Center for Family Business,
will wrap events up with a public address from 1 to 2 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 16,
in the Student Union Ballroom. Lewis, an expert in organizational
management, team building and generational leadership transition, will discuss
the ins and outs of running family-owned businesses.
The
week’s events are being held in conjunction with the annual Global
Entrepreneurship Week, an international celebration of innovators and job
creators held each November. Gigi Butler's appearance is being sponsored by the
Tennessee Small Business Development Center based at MTSU, while
the Department of Management committee members coordinating the week's
events include chair Josh Aaron, Stacy Aaron, Kristen Shanine, Ralph Williams,
Adam Smith, Pat Geho, and Jinxing Yue.
Off-campus
visitors attending the speaking events should obtain a special one-day permit
from MTSU’s Office of Parking and Transportation at http://www.mtsu.edu/parking/visit.php.
A searchable campus parking map is available at http://tinyurl.com/MTSUParkingMap.
For
more information, contact Stacy Aaron at 615-494-7708 or email stacy.aaron@mtsu.edu.
To
learn more about MTSU’s entrepreneurship program within the Department of
Management, visit http://www.mtsu.edu/programs/entrepreneurship/.
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