Carl Schramm – Burn the business plan: why the world needs more entrepreneurs
Episode 79, May 20, 2021, 09:00 AM
Today we welcome the American economist, entrepreneur, author and academic Carl Schramm. Described by The Economist as 'the evangelist of entrepreneurship', his is a message and call to action that the world needs more entrepreneurs. Why? Because there is much to play for. From the way we might successfully face future pandemics, to how we build prosperity – it is to entrepreneurs and not establishments that we should look. His book, Burn The Business Plan: What Great Entrepreneurs Really Do, has been described as the killer guide to going it alone, and asserts that great innovators have one thing in common – their appetite for risk.
Carl Schramm is University Professor at Syracuse University and former president of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. A $2 billion endowment, Kauffman is the world’s largest philanthropy dedicated to promoting entrepreneurship. Carl is recognised internationally as a leading authority on innovation, entrepreneurship and economic growth, referred to by The Economist as the “evangelist of entrepreneurship.” In 2007, Carl and then British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, created Global Entrepreneurship Week, now observed in 165 countries. His 2010 essay in Foreign Affairs initiated the study of expeditionary economics. Carl's academic career began at Johns Hopkins, where he founded the nation’s first research centre on healthcare finance. He has founded or co-founded five companies, including HCIA and Greenspring Advisors, a merchant bank. Carl also has served in major corporate roles and chaired the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Measuring Innovation in the 21st Century Economy Advisory Committee during the Bush Administration and was a member of President Obama’s National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship. He is a founding member of the Board of the International Intellectual Property Commercialisation Council, a U.N. recognised NGO, headquartered in Hong Kong; a trustee of the Templeton World Charity Foundation; and a Council Member of the National Academies of Sciences’ Government-University-Industry Research Roundtable. He has served as a trustee of the Kauffman Foundation and the Milbank Memorial Fund.