Author and veteran entrepreneurship reporter Donna Fenn was on campus November 9-12 as the fall Business Writer in Residence, a joint effort by University Communications, the Wisconsin School of Business, and the School of Journalism and Mass Communications, bringing nationally known business writers to campus to interact with students.

Members of the UW-Madison community and the public were invited to attend a special Q&A with Fenn on Tuesday, Nov. 10, to discuss her new book:“Upstarts! How GenY Entrepreneurs are Rocking the World of Business and 8Ways You Can Profit from Their Success.’ The Q&A was held fr in the Plenary Room of 1310 Grainger Hall, with a book sale and signing to follow. A live webcast of the Upstarts! Q&A will be available.

Moderating the Q&A session was Dan Olszewski, director of the Weinert Center for Entrepreneurship.

Fenn’s talk was sponsored by University Communications, Wisconsin School of Business, INSITE (Initiative for Studies in Technology Entrepreneurship), and the School of Journalism and Mass Communication. The Business Writer in Residence program is funded in part by a grant from the UW Foundation.

Fenn has more than 20 years experience writing about entrepreneurship and small business trends. Her latest book, “Upstarts!,” analyzes young entrepreneurial success strategies and what to expect from these highly collaborative and team-oriented individuals in the future. She provides readers with eight critical lessons every entrepreneur and marketer must learn.

In addition to “Upstarts!,” Fenn wrote “Alpha Dogs: How Your Small Business Can Become a Leader of the Pack,” which profiles eight successful small companies in ordinary industries, including a sock manufacturer and motorcycle dealership. Fenn is a contributing editor at Inc. magazine, a community leader at Work.com, a featured expert on SBTV.com, and a blogger on Inc.com. Her work has appeared in Inc., The New York Times, Newsweek, and many other national publications.

In 2001, Fenn was a co-recipient of the Women’s Economic Round Table Entrepreneurship Prize, sponsored by the Kauffman Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership. From 1988 to 1992, she lived in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where she was a correspondent for The Associated Press and covered a variety of issues, including business, culture, the economy and the Gulf War.

Nouriel Roubini

The Wisconsin School of Business and American Family Insurance are partners in Forward Thinking: A Speaker Series. World-renowned economist  Nouriel Roubini gave a talk for the series on “The Financial Crisis: Is the Worst Behind Us?” on June 8 on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus.

Nouriel Roubini is a professor of economics at New York University’s Stern School of Business and is cofounder and chairman of RGE Monitor, an innovative economic and geo-strategic information service. In April 2009, he was named to TIME magazine’s list of the world’s 100 most influential people.

Roubini studies international macroeconomics, political economy and the mechanisms of economic growth. He is probably best known for his warnings about an impending financial crisis. Profiled as “Dr. Doom” in The New York Times Magazine, he is much sought after for his economic insights by print and broadcast media around the world.

Roubini served as a senior adviser to the White House Council of Economic Advisers and the U.S. Treasury Department and has held several other prestigious positions in major economic institutions. He has published numerous policy papers and books on key international macroeconomic issues and contributes to a series for Project Syndicate, “Finance in the 21st Century.”

To watch his talk

To read about his talk

Daniel Gross is the Moneybox columnist for Slate and the business columnist for Newsweek. In April he spent a week as UW-Madison’s Business Writer in Residence, speaking to students at the Wisconsin School of Business and to journalism students.

A column about Gross’ impressions of his visit to Madison appeared on both Slate and Newsweek’s websites. In the column, Gross favorably compared the city and the business school to their East Coast counterparts. According to Gross, “Madison, with its three-legged economic stool of education, state government, and health care, is faring somewhat better. More significantly, the business school isn’t having a dark night of the soul, as so many of its Eastern counterparts are.”

Read the column

From high-tech flavored plastics and eco-friendly vending machines to medical devices for emerging countries, students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are pursuing solutions to everyday problems.

Thirty students and a record number of 18 teams competed in this year’s G. Steven Burrill Business Plan Competition at the Wisconsin School of Business for the chance to win more than $20,000 in prize money.

Students presented their original business plans on Friday, April 17, in Grainger Hall on the UW-Madison campus. The top prize of $10,000 was won by the team for City Dictionary, which offers information on local culture, and language for cities around the world.

“Entrepreneurship leads to innovation — it answers questions and provides solutions to real and emerging needs,” says Anne Miner, professor of Management and Human Resources at the Wisconsin School of Business and director of the competition. “Through this annual event students have the opportunity to come together and create answers to society’s most challenging problems. It is exciting to see these young minds develop the next generation of innovative ideas that will drive tomorrow’s business.”

Since its inception in 1998, more than 300 students have participated in the competition while thousands have attended skill-building seminars to develop their business planning expertise. BusinessWeek and other national media have recognized competition alumni for their successes.

The competition is named for sponsor G. Steven Burrill, a longtime supporter of student innovation and entrepreneurship. Burrill is CEO of Burrill & Company, a life sciences merchant bank with more than $950 million under management. He earned a BBA degree from the Wisconsin School of Business in 1966.

2009 COMPETITION WINNERS

1st  place ($10,000)
City Dictionary

2nd place ($7,000)
Add the Flavor

3rd place ($4,000)
Ecostream

4th place($1,000)
Cultured Kids Immersion Schools LLC

ERLC Choice Award ($100)
VirtuWill

Mini-Competition Award ($250)
PosiPair

Nelson Sustainable Venture Award ($1000)
Ecostream

Social Impact Award ($1,000)
A+ Mission

Read about this year’s competition

Daniel Gross is a widely read financial and economic writer and the author of five books, including his latest, “Dumb Money: How Our Greatest Financial Minds Bankrupted the Nation.” [Read more]

The nation’s top authorities on the most critical issues in international finance will speak at a half-day conference May 1 at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. [Read more]

Three veterans of  Silicon Valley’s blazing tech success shared their business expertise with graduate students in life sciences and engineering at the first-ever Wisconsin Entrepreneurial Bootcamp. [Read more]

A rock-band comprised of leading economists from around the nation. Sound boring? Only to the un-initiated! The Contractions, featuring University of Wisconsin Real Estate Professor Morris Davis on bass, will offer a high-energy evening of classic rock hits at Madison’s King Club on Thursday, April 26 at 9:30 p.m.

[Read more]

Four leading economists will share their insights and predictions for local, regional, national and international economies and financial markets for 2008 and beyond at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Economic Outlook conference on Friday, April 4, at the Fluno Center for Executive Education in Madison. [Read more]

The Office of Corporate Relations (OCR) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is hosting a number of programs for Entrepreneurship Week USA, a national effort to inspire and encourage young people to consider entrepreneurship as a career choice and to celebrate America’s unique culture of inventiveness.

[Read more]

The nation’s top money managers will converge on the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business this week for the 2006 Applied Security Analysis Program (ASAP) Fall Investment Conference. This conference, held Oct 26-28, will feature leading experts from the university and the investment industry.

[Read more]