One of Chicago's greatest assets as a tech hub is its proximity to Fortune 500 companies, like McDonald's, Boeing, Walgreens, Allstate, and over 30 others. Yes, the coasts are better destinations for attracting venture capital, but, at the end of the day, a product needs to sell to survive. And it helps when some of the biggest buyers in the world are in your backyard.
As clients, feeders, partners, and potential suitors, these local corporations are essential to the overall health of the Windy City startup ecosystem. Yet their role in Chicago's innovation economy extends beyond their wallets. They're also innovators themselves.
Though startups and early-stage companies seem to have an exclusiveness on the "innovative" label, it's these large corporations that are developing and driving next-gen technology.
That's why, at SOI, some of Chicago's biggest companies will team up with organizations that are straddling the corporate and startup worlds to discuss how big businesses innovate and the overall role they play in the ecosystem.
Here are the speakers and moderators for the State of Innovation's Inno 500 panel:
Speaker: Mike Bousch, Head of Digital, Discover
Mike Boush is Vice President, E-Business and Chief Digital Officer at Discover Financial Services. Discover, a leading credit card issuer, direct bank, and e-payment services company, is one of the most recognized brands in U.S. financial services. Mike spearheads all Discover Card web and mobile activities, including marketing, E-Commerce, customer service, social community, and brand experience. Mike is also responsible for Discover's online innovations group and the company's digital strategy.
Speaker: Rumi Morales, Executive Director of the CME Group’s Strategic Investment Group
Rumi Morales is Executive Director of the CME Group’s Strategic Investment Group (SIG), which makes strategic minority investments in emerging technology companies whose innovative products or services could, in the longer term, have an impact on the financial services vertical. Previously, she was an Executive Director in CME’s International Corporate Development and Finance division managing global business partnerships.
Prior to CME, Rumi was a Vice President at Goldman Sachs in New York and Hong Kong, where she held roles of increasing responsibility in the Fixed Income Currencies and Commodities Division and the Office of the Chairman. Prior to Goldman Sachs, Rumi was a Principal at private investment firms in New York, London and Kuala Lumpur. She graduated magna cum laude from Wellesley College, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and received her MBA from the New York University Stern School of Business.
Speaker: Terry Howerton, Founder and CEO of TechNexus
Terry Howerton is a lifelong entrepreneur, founding his first company at age 15. He’s spent a career starting and leading ventures, mentoring other entrepreneurs and building organizations. Terry is a frequent speaker and active influence on innovation, ventures and issues important to the technology industry.
Howerton is the founder and executive chairman of TechNexus, a venture development firm building a new, collaborative model for leading corporations to engage and extract value from the global entrepreneurial ecosystem. TechNexus also operates a start-up incubator from its headquarters in Chicago. To date, more than 200 ventures have grown at TechNexus.
Howerton founded the Illinois Technology Association, helping to define the nascent technology community in that region, which over the past decade has grown to more than 3,000 interconnected tech companies.
Speaker: Coming Soon!
Moderator: Philip Nevels, Executive Director of ChicagoNEXTChicagoNEXT is a World Business Chicago initiative focused on fostering economic development and job growth in Chicago within the CleanTech, BioScience, and Web/Mobile sectors. As Executive Director, Phil is responsible for efforts to attract the entrepreneurs, investment and support infrastructure needed to grow technology companies within these sectors.
Prior to his role at World Business Chicago, Phil Nevels was most recently the Co-founder and COO of Power2Switch, a company dedicated to helping its residential and commercial customers shop for electricity through the web. Power2Switch, recently acquired by Kleiner Perkins’ Choose Energy, was an alum of Techstars Chicago having started out of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business in 2009. At the time of its acquisition, Power2Switch had operations in Illinois, Texas, New Jersey, New York, and Ohio. At Power2Switch, Phil led business development efforts, establishing and managing a variety of partnerships across the property management, personal finance and media industries.
