Syracuse University Entrepreneurship Thought Leaders Appointed to CNBC Disruptor 50 Advisory Council

Michael Haynie, vice chancellor for strategic initiatives and innovation, and Alexander McKelvie, associate professor and chair of the Martin J. Whitman School of Management’s entrepreneurship and emerging enterprises department, are two of 39 thought leaders selected to serve on the 2017 CNBC Disruptor 50 Advisory Council. This is Professor McKelvie’s second year on the council.

Through its annual Disruptor 50 list, now in its fifth year, CNBC identifies innovative private companies in a variety of industries that are reimagining the world. According to CNBC, the 2017 Disruptors  have raised $44 billion in venture capital and have the potential to become billion-dollar businesses themselves.

Professors Haynie and McKelvie, along with other leading thinkers in the field of innovation and entrepreneurship,  helped CNBC determine weighting for the quantitative criteria used in the Disruptor 50 methodology. The two were chosen for their own prestigious contributions to the field of entrepreneurship from research and innovation to their work with veterans and outreach programs.

“The barriers to entry for entrepreneurship have never been lower and there are several industries that are prime targets for disruption,” says Vice Chancellor Haynie. “It is inspiring to see founders leveraging rapidly changing technology to solve so many different problems in the marketplace.”

“With professors and thought leaders from the world’s leading universities, including Harvard, Stanford and the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, we worked to identify those start-ups that were most able to not only sustain their ideas, but also scale up and grow,” says Professor McKelvie.

For the complete list of the 2017 CNBC Disruptor 50, visit http://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/16/the-2017-cnbc-disruptor-50-list-of-companies.html.