December 2003

Center for Entrepreneurial Development Hosts Discussion Forum on
Building a Management Team

Undergraduates, graduate students, faculty, and members of the local community gathered in mid-November to hear a panel of entrepreneurs discuss how to build a management team best suited to the needs of an emerging business during the four stages of a start-up -- concept, development, execution, and growth. The Center for Entrepreneurial Development (CED) at the College of Business in association with Illinois Ventures, LLC hosted the discussion forum..

The panel members were Gary Garrabrant, co-founder and CEO of Equity International, Ltd., Greg Bohlen, CFO of The Aurora Funds, Inc., and Harlee Sorkin, co-founder and principal of Mentor Management, LLC. The discussion forum was moderated by Steven Miller, a principal at Origin Ventures. The panel presentation was followed by a question and answer period.

The panelists answered a series of questions presented by Miller about the formation of a management team. Topics included the best time for an entrepreneur to hire a management team, what characteristics are desirable in potential team members, and when a management team member should be replaced. Each of the speakers gave examples of situations he faced during his entrepreneurial career. The panelists offered some obvious and not-so-obvious recommendations for budding entrepreneurs on what constitutes a good management team:

• Hire a team with experience
• Hire a team with chemistry
• Always hire people smarter than you are, in order to "plug the holes"
• Recognize when a team member needs to be let go
• Understand that the make-up of a management team must change as the company changes

The discussion began with a welcome by Dinesh Ahluwalia, CED director, followed by an introduction of Avijit Ghosh, dean of the College of Business. According to the dean, one of the goals of the evening was to "reach out to the Champaign-Urbana community to bring [about] notions of entrepreneurship."

A networking reception preceded the discussion. This discussion forum was made possible by a contribution from John A. Schoen and was also sponsored by KMZ Rosenman.

The Center for Entrepreneurial Development was established in 2002 to serve as a focal point and to coordinate the various entrepreneurial initiatives of the College of Business. CED has become a focal point of entrepreneurial interaction on the Urbana-Champaign campus in fulfilment of its mission to fostering entrepreneurship among University of Illinois stakeholders.

--Ashleigh Johnson
November 2003