Executive Speaker Series

The Northern Arizona Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology and The W. A. Franke College of Business are proud to announce its October Executive Speakers, Jenean Perelstein and Lee Bliss on October 1st at 6:00 PM in the Gardner Auditorium.

Immersed in a Start-Up: The Art and Science of Lean, Fast, Creation.

As a Sociocultural Anthropologist, Jenean Merkel Perelstein has studied behavior change across many different cultures. From the markets and prisons of India to the boardrooms of the United States, Jenean has learned and implemented change strategies that have saved lives and made fortunes. Jenean worked as a medical anthropologist under programs sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, the Center for Disease Control and the McArthur Foundation.  As a Business Strategist and serial entrepreneur, Jenean has started six successful businesses, mentored several startups, and was CEO of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Flagstaff. She loves the challenge of creating new businesses and new products; and she loves the thrill of seeing the seeds of her vision grow into something amazing that benefits the lives of those around her. For the last three years she has been working hard on new technology projects with her partner Lee Bliss. Beta tests have recently begun for two of these projects, and a full public launch into the technology marketplace is not far away.

Lee Bliss grew up creating. At the time, this meant playing Dungeons and Dragons and writing programs for PET32 computers with cassette tape drives that went “CHUNK CHUNK CHUNK CHUNK CHUNK” all the time. Things have changed a bit since then, but Lee’s drive to create remains the same. Over the years, Lee earned two college degrees, wrote several novels, learned Japanese and spent four years living in Japan, programmed in Silicon Valley, and had two amazing kids. But in 2009, Lee had an epiphany. A bit belatedly, he realized that being an entrepreneur and starting one’s own business was the only way to find true freedom. Working hard for a fixed sum of money independent of how successful the product one creates may become is not freedom at all. It’s servitude.  It is serving the business owner who is gaining all of the wealth and prestige for what his employees are creating. This is often derogatorily referred to as “Working for the MAN.”  In 2009, Lee realized that he had been working for the MAN his entire life, and it was time to stop. It was time to create for the direct benefit of self, and in so doing, create not only amazing products, but also create the real freedom that he had always desired. Freedom to make the rules of his own employ. Freedom to invent whatever he wanted. Freedom to enjoy the wealth and prestige generated by his own hard work and imagination. Three years later, Lee and his partner Jenean are deep in the start-up mix, with two awesome technology projects getting closer and closer to market. It’s been tough, but the wonder and achievement that can be found as a stranger is a strange new land is unparalleled within the nine-to-five salaried world. Entrepreneurship is a wild and crazy adventure, but it is also where a creative soul can make amazing things happen, and at the end of the day, earn the kind wealth and freedom that is deserved for such hard work and creative vision.

Where: The W.A. Franke College of Business’s Gardner Auditorium

When: October 1st at 6:00 PM

Event is free and open to the public. No registration required.