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CED Announces All-Star Cast of Speakers for Venture 2003
NY's 'Corporate Crusader' Spitzer to Keynote with GSK's Ingram; Other Speakers to Include Leading VC Alsop and Basketball Legend Krzyzewski
March 6, 2003, Research Triangle Park, NC - - The Council for Entrepreneurial Development (CED) today announced its remaining speaker list for Venture 2003, and the organization's 20th annual conference is certain to be a crowd pleaser. Eliot Spitzer, New York's Attorney General and the nation's leading crusader for corporate reform, together with previously announced Robert Ingram, Vice Chair of Pharmaceuticals and former COO of GlaxoSmithKline, will provide keynote remarks. Other speakers will include venture capitalist and Fortune columnist Stewart Alsop and Duke University's men's head basketball coach and best-selling author Mike Krzyzewski.
Scheduled for April 22-23, 2003, in Chapel Hill, NC, Venture 2003 will continue its 20-year tradition of showcasing North Carolina's strongest investment opportunities to venture capitalists and financiers from throughout the United States.
Since becoming New York's Attorney General in 1999, Spitzer has developed a national reputation for his work to reform the nation's financial services industry and his role in cracking down on corporate scandals.
Stewart Alsop, general partner of New Enterprise Associates and columnist for Fortune magazine, will share his view into what is to come in the world of hot technology, as he moderates a discussion among leading North Carolina university researchers focused on cutting-edge research.
Krzyzewski, winner of three national championships during his 22-year career at Duke and New York Times best-selling author of Leading with the Heart, will discuss his leadership style and explain how this approach transfers into to the world of business.
Steve Nelson, a partner with the Wakefield Group and co-chair of Venture 2003, said he was extremely pleased with Venture 2003's speaker line-up. "With this as the event's 20th anniversary showcasing North Carolina's best private equity investment opportunities, we wanted Venture 2003's program to be 'outrageously great'," Nelson said.
"The combination of Ingram, Spitzer, Alsop and Coach K offer a stellar program to add to the already exceptional line-up of presenting companies," continued Nelson. "The willingness of the speakers to share their combined experiences and insights speaks volumes to the growing strength of the Research Triangle and North Carolina as one of the foremost players in the next generation of leading innovation-based economic regions."
During three rounds of selections over the past three months, CED chose 23 companies to present at Venture 2003. For more information on the presenting companies, visit www.cednc.org/venture/2003/presenters/. Since 1999, Venture presenters have raised over $1.5 billion in venture capital.
About Venture 2003: CED's upcoming 20th annual Venture 2003 - where great minds meet smart money - is scheduled for April 22-23, 2003 at The Friday Center in Chapel Hill, NC. Last year's conference, Venture 2002, drew a crowd of more than 850 investors, service professionals, entrepreneurs and others involved in the entrepreneurial funding process from throughout the United States. Interested parties should visit the conference Web site at www.cednc.org/venture/2003.
About CED: The Council for Entrepreneurial Development, located in Research Triangle Park, NC, is a private, non-profit organization formed in 1984 to stimulate the creation and growth of high-impact companies in the greater Research Triangle region. CED provides education, mentoring and capital formation resources to new and existing high-growth entrepreneurs through annual conferences, seminars, workshops and monthly programs on entrepreneurial management and finance. CED is the largest entrepreneurial support organization in the nation with more than 4,00 members representing 1,100 entrepreneurial companies, financiers and professional firms. www.cednc.org