Your guides during the home-study component of the program are distinguished faculty members at the leading business schools of the world: the University of Chicago, Harvard, MIT, Dartmouth, Yale, Stanford, and others. You will be viewing their most recently recorded lectures and reading from their reading and case lists.

Your Mentors for the in-person meetings are MBAs and Ph.D.s with deep experience in entrepreneurship, new venture strategy, management consulting, and private equity. They are operating executives who know how to start, and run, great businesses. They have skills matured by intense reflection and active practice.

Main Instructor: Russ Rosenzweig

Russ W. Rosenzweig is the CEO and co-founder of Round Table Group. Prior to joining Round Table, Mr. Rosenzweig served as a senior consultant for the management consulting practice of PriceWaterhouseCoopers in Chicago. Mr. Rosenzweig was previously the youngest corporate finance analyst at Alpha Capital Venture Partners, a venture capital firm in Chicago, where he focused on providing debt and equity financing to middle market public and private companies.

Mr. Rosenzweig holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics and mathematical methods in the social sciences from Northwestern University and an MBA from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. He also holds a Certificate in Liberal Arts from the University of Chicago and a Certificate des Etudes from the University of Paris (Sorbonne).

At Round Table Group Mr. Rosenzweig is an advisor to law firms and money managers on matters related to location, selection, and retention of experts. He also advises fast-growing private companies on location and selection of advisory board members. The firm maintains a network of 65,000 university professors and industry experts around the world.

In addition to his work in the expert services area, Mr. Rosenzweig leads Round Table's corporate education practice. He teaches students and executives on topics related to entrepreneurship and management strategy. He is Professor (adjunct) of Management Strategy at the renowned Institute of Design at the Illinois Institute of Technology. He also teaches at the University of Chicago Graham School where he directs the University of Chicago's New Entrepreneurs Program, an advanced program of study for seasoned professionals beginning the process of starting a new venture. Mr. Rosenzweig has served as a Visiting Fellow at the Illinois Institute of Technology and is a frequent guest lecturer for MBA courses at Stanford University and the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business.

An authority on innovation and strategy within larger firms, Mr. Rosenzweig co-created the "Internal Venture Marketplace" framework with Professor Harry Davis of the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business and is the co-author, with Professor Davis, of an article on the topic published in "The Virtual Strategist," an academic journal. He has advised BP, ExxonMobil, Lockheed Martin, Motorola, Black & Decker, FMC Corporation, and other companies on new-venture creation. He has applied distance learning and web-based technologies to teach management strategy to hundreds of managers around the world, including, formerly, as Director of the Booz Allen & Hamilton Certificate Program in Business Strategy.

Mr. Rosenzweig served as an advisor to the Office of the Mayor of Chicago on its "Digital Divide" initiative, and authored the business plan to deliver refurbished computers to the Chicago Public Schools. He serves on the board of advisors of several early stage companies in the United States, France, and the United Kingdom. He was the founder and former Managing Director of Michigan & Oak Partners, a private equity and startup advisory concern. He is an active "angel" and real estate investor.

Mr. Rosenzweig's accomplishments have been profiled in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Crain's Chicago Business, Fortune Magazine, the Chicago Tribune, and in two business school case studies published by Stanford University. In 2005, Inc. Magazine named RTG for the third year in a row to the "Inc. 500" list of the fastest growing private companies in the US. Mr. Rosenzweig is regularly quoted in news articles as an expert in entrepreneurship and business strategy. Recently, Crain's Chicago Business named him a member of "The Internet 100," a select group of influential executives, decisionmakers, financiers and idea people in the Chicago business community.

Mr. Rosenzweig has a special interest in the interrelationship of management, the liberal arts, and music. He is at the center of a Chicago School movement to discover business strategy insights from classic texts, particularly works by Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Descartes, Hume, and Shakespeare. He is a Governing Member of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and he serves as Vice President of the Board of Directors of the Chicago Chamber Musicians, one of the world's premier chamber music groups. An avid clarinetist, he was once a nationally ranked amateur and is presently a member of the Sherwood Conservatory's chamber music ensemble. He recently performed pieces by Mozart, Beethoven, Milhaud, Poulenc, von Weber, and Mendelssohn in recital.

Mr. Rosenzweig is a member of the Economic Club of Chicago, Entrepreneurs Organization (EO), Young President's Organization (YPO), the University Club of Chicago, and the Northwestern University Alumni Admissions Council. He enjoys jazz and classical music, spicy ethnic food, bicycling, skiing, kung fu, squash, and performing on his clarinet.