Self-made Chicago billionaire kicks off IIT lecture series
“It’s about high-energy, and self-motivation. You have to think not just outside the box, but well beyond it.” Words of wisdom and even some occasional wit about entrepreneurship, from Chicago real estate magnate and billionaire Sam Zell.
They came during Zell’s first appearance on the main campus at Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), Oct. 22, 2002, to kick off the new “Thought Leaders Seminar” series of lectures. The series is sponsored by IIT’s Leadership Academy and Entrepreneurship Program.
Zell, 60, is one of Chicago’s first homegrown billionaires. He began his career in real estate while an undergraduate at the University of Michigan by managing apartment buildings. He continued his interests in real estate with the founding of Equity Group Investments, L.L.C., (formerly known as Equity Financial and Management Company), an entrepreneurial real estate investment firm based in Chicago, where he currently serves as chairman of the board.
Zell spoke about his own experiences, pointing to characteristics that helped him succeed. He told the audience it’s about being ambitious toward objectives and finding opportunities in problems and developing creative solutions to solve them.
“Failure is not in the entrepreneur’s vocabulary,” Zell said. It’s about always keeping your optimism. Thinking of the glass as always being half full, rather than half empty."
For Zell, success in entrepreneurship often comes by seeing what others don’t see. “It’s about identifying and recognizing opportunity and going after it,” Zell said. “It’s like the old saying of finding the shortest distance between two points. It will always be a straight line. In entrepreneurship, there is no role for procrastination. You always have to look for the fastest way to get there.”
The seminar lectures take place in the Perlstein Hall Auditorium, 10 W. 33rd Street, at 4 p.m. A question and answer session follows. Here is the lineup of future programs:
Nov. 21, 2002 Sam Pitroda, chairman, WorldTel, Inc.
Feb. 13, 2003 Karl Klessig, former CEO, Xdrive Technologies, Inc.
Mar. 11, 2003 Craig Watson, president, Payment Engineering, LLC.
Apr. 8, 2003 Frank Kreusi, president, Chicago Transit Authority
Apr. 22, 2003 Sandy LaMantia, CEO, Shure, Inc.
Christine Schyvinck, VP for operations, Shure, Inc.
Founded in 1890, IIT is a Ph.D.-granting technological university awarding degrees in the sciences, mathematics and engineering, as well as architecture, psychology, design, business and law. IIT’s interprofessional, technology-focused curriculum prepares the university’s 6,200 students for leadership roles in an increasingly complex and culturally diverse global workplace.
