August 13, 2008
"Four E's: Entrepreneurship,
Education, Excellence
and Eller"
with Dr. Paul Portney
www.eller.arizona.edu
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Circles of Change: Conversations with Dr. Zara Larsen
on Change Leadership and Career Fulfillment
August 13, 2008
“The Four E’s: Entrepreneurship, Education, Excellence and Eller”
Guest: Dr. Paul Portney, Dean, Eller College of Business, University of Arizona
Anchoring Points:
- At age 60 I make the shift from a 100-person research think tank where I had spent my entire career, to scale up to something bigger and harder – 6,000 students, 120 faculty and 250 staff colleagues. It was either now or never!
- I must have been a Southwesterner in an earlier life, as I feel so comfortable in Arizona, in particular surrounded by the optimism and unlimited potential of the youth at a university.
- The Entrepreneurship Program (with the seriousness of research and characteristics of people in business) and Management of Information Technology were major attractors for me to join U of A.
- At Eller we believe we can equip students with entrepreneurial skills and can recognize inherent individuals’ abilities – help them see what they already have – to dream big, take risks.
- The U. S. is a nation of genetic scripting from immigrants, those who brought with them aptitude for risk taking, enabled by rules of law, intellectual property protection, tax advantages to invest in human capital, rich natural resources, and a higher education system that has been the envy of the world.
- I do see an increase in students’ interest to pursue high social impact work and make business an agent of world change.
We learn from any risk taking that we undertake – personal and career – and the two build capability and ability upon one another. You are never too old to make a change.
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