The Famous Entrepreneurs Series (FES) is a business membership organization created to fuel the entrepreneurial flame in the Greater Syracuse and Central Upstate New York (CNY) region. FES hosts quarterly lectures for local members of the academic community, entrepreneurs, and businesses. Through FES, CEOs and management thought leaders share their successes, failures and visions in an effort to create inspired discussions within the local community.

FES was created in 2006 by Jud Gostin, CEO of Sensis Corporation, in partnership with many other CEOs from growing companies in the CNY. Other FES founding companies include: Anaren, Clear Channel Communications, Communigration, Dolphin Technologies, O’Brien & Gene, PPC, SRC and United Radio.

Past speakers have included Facebook Co-founder and “MyBarakObama.com” Founder, Chris Hughes, Founder and General Manager of IDEO Product Development, Tom Kelley, Professor of International Business and Founding Director of the Center for Global Leadership at the Tusk School of Business at Dartmouth College, Vijay Govindarajan

Vijay Govindarajan

Vijay Govindarajan, known as VG, is the Earl C. Daum 1924 Professor of International Business at the Tuck School of Business and founding director of Tuck's Center for Global Leadership...

, CEOs Carly Fiorina

Carly Fiorina

Carly Fiorina is an American business executive and a former Republican candidate for the United States Senate representing California. Fiorina served as chief executive officer of Hewlett-Packard from 1999 to 2005 and previously was an executive at AT&T and its equipment and technology spinoff,...

 of Hewlett-Packard, Richard Teerlink of Harley-Davidson, Jon Luther of Dunkin’ Brands, Anne Mulcahy of Xerox and David Barger of Jet Blue. FES has also featured entrepreneurs and authors C.K. Prahalad, author of "Competing for the Future," Michael Treacy, author of "The Discipline of Market Leaders," and Rod Beckstrom

Rod Beckstrom

Rod Beckstrom is an author, high-tech entrepreneur, and CEO and President of ICANN.He previously served as Director of the National Cyber Security Center. Prior to that Beckstrom was Chairman and Chief Catalyst of TWIKI.NET, a company which supports TWiki, an open source wiki...

, author of "The Starfish and the Spider”.

2009-2010 Season

Date	Speaker	Title
17 November 2008	Chris Hughes	Co-founder of Facebook and Founder of "My.BarackObama.com"
12 January 2010	Tom Kelley	Founder and General Manager at IDEO Product Development and author of "The Art of Innovation" and "The Ten Faces of Innovation"
24 March 2010	Vijay Govindarajan Vijay Govindarajan Vijay Govindarajan, known as VG, is the Earl C. Daum 1924 Professor of International Business at the Tuck School of Business and founding director of Tuck's Center for Global Leadership...	Founder of Center for Global Leadership at Dartmouth and author of "Ten Rules for Strategic Innovators"
19 May 2010	Marilyn Carlson Nelson	Chairman and former CEO of Carlson Companies and author of "How We Lead Matters"

2008-2009 Season

Date	Speaker	Title
17 November 2008	David Barger	Founder & CEO of JetBlue
10 February 2009	Dov Seidman	Founder, Chairman, and CEO of LRN, the global leader in ethics and compliance management
24 March 2010	Ronald Heifetz	Leadership Expert and Founder of Center for Public Leadership at Harvard
20 May 2009	Doug Hall Doug Hall Doug Hall is an author and inventor. He is known for his "Jump Start" book series, as well as for his appearance on the ABC television series American Inventor....	Founder and CEO of Eureka! Ranch and author of "Jump Start Your Business Brain" and "Jump Start Your Marketing Brain"

2007-2008 Season

Date	Speaker	Title
8 November 2007	Jon L. Luther Jon L. Luther Jon L. Luther is an American food-service industry Executive. He is currently the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Dunkin' Brands. From February 1997 until December 2002, Luther was president of Popeyes Chicken & Biscuits, a division of AFC Enterprises.Prior to Popeyes, Luther was president...	CEO of Dunkin Brands
9 January 2008	Rod Beckstrom Rod Beckstrom Rod Beckstrom is an author, high-tech entrepreneur, and CEO and President of ICANN.He previously served as Director of the National Cyber Security Center. Prior to that Beckstrom was Chairman and Chief Catalyst of TWIKI.NET, a company which supports TWiki, an open source wiki...	Venture capitalist, entrepreneur and co-author of "The Starfish and the Spider: the Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations"
6 March 2008	Mark Thompson	Management guru, executive coach and co-author of "Success Built to Last"
1 May 2008	Anne Mulcahy	Chairman of the Board and former CEO of Xerox Corporation

2006-2007 Season

Date	Speaker	Title
6 November 2006	C.K. Prahalad	Management expert, consultant and author of "Competing for the Future"
17 January 2007	Carly Fiorina Carly Fiorina Carly Fiorina is an American business executive and a former Republican candidate for the United States Senate representing California. Fiorina served as chief executive officer of Hewlett-Packard from 1999 to 2005 and previously was an executive at AT&T and its equipment and technology spinoff,...	Former Chairman of the Board and CEO of Hewlett-Packard
7 March 2007	Michael Treacy	Management & marketing guru, entrepreneur and author of "Discipline of Market Leaders" and "Double Digit Growth"
4 May 2007	Richard Teerlink	Former President, CEO, CFO & Chairman of the Board of Harley-Davidson