Press
WATCH LINDA ON CNBC SQUAWK BOX DISCUSSING “CRAZY IS A COMPLIMENT”
HOW ENTREPRENEURS ARE RESPONDING TO THE ECONOMY
15 PEOPLE WHO ARE TAKING NETWORKING TO A NEW LEVEL
The art of networking changes every time a new Snapchat is born.
But the principle of human connections making the difference for success will be fundamental as long as human beings care about relationships.
Last year, we reported on what we called The Rise of the Superconnector, a growing class of people whose profession is to help the overwhelmed masses unlock the value of their superfluous social connections–or make new connections en masse. In reality, “superconnectors” have operated since the birth of media, typically to connect people and ideas to communities, or businesses with audiences. But in the digital age, it’s easier than ever to both make connections and become a connector–so easy that we need help filtering the networking noise. [More]
GOT A “CRAZY” CAREER DREAM? GOOD!
Bucking the norm can make you happier, argues Linda Rottenberg, author of the new book Crazy Is a Compliment.
Linda Rottenberg is used to people thinking she’s nuts. When she told her parents she was leaving her safe corporate job to launch her own company, they were skeptical: Would her Yale law degree go to waste? And when she pitched her idea—to establish a fund that would help other entrepreneurs get their start—to Latin American investors, they nicknamed her la chica loca. But today her company, Endeavor, has helped nearly a thousand entrepreneurs generate more than $6 billion in revenue annually. In other words, her kind of crazy works. [More]
WATCH LINDA ON FOX BUSINESS’ AFTER THE BELL
ZAYO ELECTS NEW INDEPENDENT DIRECTOR LINDA ROTTENBERG
BOULDER, Colo., May 12, 2014 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Zayo Group, LLC (“Zayo”), today announces that it has elected Linda Rottenberg, CEO of Endeavor, to its board of directors. Rottenberg is a widely recognized leader in entrepreneurship and economic development. [More]
LINDA ROTTENBERG HELPS PEOPLE PURSUE DREAMS – AND CREATE THOUSANDS OF JOBS
Linda Rottenberg is not one to avoid risk.
“I believe that stability is the friend of the status quo, and chaos is the friend of the entrepreneur,” she says. “So I get nervous when things are too stable.”
Not only has she taken her share of risks throughout her career, she has made a point of encouraging others to do the same. [More]
CHANGE AGENTS: ROTTENBERG’S ‘CRAZY’ WORLD MISSION
After graduating from Yale Law School nearly two decades ago, Linda Rottenberg spent time working in Latin America for Ashoka, a non-profit focused on promoting social entrepreneurship. She quickly earned herself a nickname: la chica loca — that crazy girl. It’s not what you think. The moniker wasn’t the result of wild nights in the clubs of Buenos Aires and Santiago, but rather courtesy of her insistent and incessant declaration that places such as Argentina and Chile could be engines of a new economic revolution. [More]
WATCH LINDA ON THE TODAY SHOW
NEW RESEARCH: IF YOU WANT TO SCALE IMPACT, PUT FINANCIAL RESULTS FIRST
Entrepreneurs who lead for-profit, social enterprises face a unique challenge: they must simultaneously create financial value for their investors and social value for those they seek to serve. Having two missions, however, sometimes creates conflicts that can slow companies’ growth. Endeavor Insight, the research arm of our organization Endeavor, has found that the way that entrepreneurs who lead social enterprises make tradeoffs between social and financial goals is a critical factor in determining the degree to which their companies will grow. Indeed, in our experience, and in a targeted study of close to 20 entrepreneurs, we found that those who prioritized financial goals over social ones were more likely to grow their social enterprises and achieve greater impact. We also discovered ways to build business models that reduced friction between commercial and social goals, thereby smoothing the path to growth. [More]
WHY HIGH-IMPACT ENTREPRENEURSHIP MATTERS
Recently, Bono admitted to some “humbling” realizations about foreign aid—claiming that when it comes to fostering sustainable economic growth, “job creators and innovators are… the key, and aid is just a bridge.”
Sometimes we need to listen to our rock stars.
It’s no secret: the world needs jobs. The UN estimates that worldwide, more than 500 million new jobs need to be created by 2020. Especially when it comes to emerging markets, there is a growing realization that entrepreneurship is the best answer to high unemployment. But not just any type of entrepreneurship: high-impact entrepreneurship. [More]
WATCH LINDA ON CNBC SQUAWK BOX DISCUSSING ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN GREECE
LINDA ROTTENBERG’S HIGH-IMPACT ENDEAVOR
Growing up in one of Rio de Janeiro’s impoverished favelas, Heloísa Helena Assis realized that there was enormous demand for an affordable product that would tame Brazilian women’s unruly curls. In 1993, Assis and her partners — a former nanny, a cabdriver, and a McDonald’s employee — started a business called Beleza Natural (“Natural Beauty”) in the basement of a modest house in the suburbs of Rio de Janeiro. The company was an immediate success. Beleza Natural was soon scrambling to keep up with demand, unsure of how to pursue strategic growth with limited funding. [More]
FORBES’ LIST OF THE TOP 30 SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURS
Darell Hammond read a Washington Post article about children who suffocated while playing in an abandoned car because they had nowhere else to play. Willy Foote met vanilla farmers in Mexico who didn’t have access to credit and couldn’t connect to markets. Sara Horowitz was working at a lawyer, didn’t qualify for health insurance because she was considered a “freelancer,” and started thinking about other people who faced the same problem. While working in Argentina, Linda Rottenberg wondered why more Latin American entrepreneurs didn’t create global companies. And then– unlike millions of us who recognize some kind of problem, feel a pang of hopelessness, and move on– Hammond, Foote and others shifted careers and set about fixing the problems they saw in the world. [More]
THE NOT-FOR-PROFIT-CAPITALIST
“When I first met Linda and Peter in 1997, I thought they were some new kind of Mormons,” says Wences Casares. But in the late 1990s, Linda Rottenberg and Peter Kellner, Ivy League graduates in their late 20s, were preaching a different brand of indigenous American gospel: the power of entrepreneurship and networking, and the ability of businesses to transform perennially moribund economies. Casares, the son of sheep farmers from Patagonia, was running a financial portal. His ambition: to build a Latin American E-Trade. But in 1997, venture capitalists weren’t exactly flocking to Buenos Aires to fund twentysomethings. [More]