Verne Harnish

The founder of two world-renowned entrepreneurship organizations, the Young Entrepreneurs’ Organization (YEO) and the Association of Collegiate Entrepreneurs (ACE), Verne is presently founder and CEO of Gazelles, Inc., which serves as an outsourced corporate university for mid-size firms and hosts a faculty of well-known business experts including Jim Collins, Geoff Smart, Jack Stack, Neil Rackham, Seth Godin, and Pat Lencioni and sponsors benchmarking trips to GE, Southwest Airlines, Microsoft, and Dell. Gazelles has also created the first affordable “digital dashboard” web-based application called Flash Report.

The “Growth Guy” columnist for several publications and a contributing editor for Fortune Small Business magazine, Verne is the author of Mastering the Rockefeller Habits: What You Must Do to Increase the Value of Your Fast-Growth Firm, which was released in April 2002 and has been translated into Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. Named one of the “Top 10 Minds in Small Business” by Fortune Small Business Magazine (FSB), he appeared on the cover of the Dec/Jan 2002 issue of the magazine.

Verne chairs the renowned “Birthing of Giants” entrepreneurship leadership program at MIT and the MIT/WEO “Advanced Business Program”. He also chaired the leadership program for the Canada’s prestigious “Top 40 Under 40” program and helped launch in 2002 a new executive program in Malaysia entitled “Taipan, the Making of Asian Giants.”

Given his expertise in the field of entrepreneurship, he has appeared on several national television and radio programs including Smart Money, CBS News, and Nation’s Business Today; and appeared in stories in over one hundred magazines and newspapers including Forbes, Inc., and The Wall Street Journal.

Verne has a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and an MBA from Wichita State University. He is married to Julie and has a 8 year-old son Cameron, a 6 year-old son Cole, and 2 year-old daughter Jade. Hobbies include piano, tennis, and magic as a member of the International Brotherhood of Magicians. Honors include National Leader of the Year for Omicron Delta Kappa (Leadership honorary organization) and one of the first two recipients of the National Laureate Award for Leadership by Tau Beta Pi (Engineering honorary organization).