The Justice

Media Credit: Max Breitstein Matza Linda Rottenberg, CEO and co-founder of Endeavor, spoke to an audience at Lemberg Academic Center on Monday, March 23.

When Linda Rottenberg co-founded Endeavor, a nonprofit group that provides support for entrepreneurs, she had ambitions of transforming the private sector in emerging markets, identifying businesses that would employ thousands of workers and even putting an entirely new word in the dictionaries and minds of developing countries.

Rottenberg sported a stylish pink suit and contagious smile as she talked to students and faculty at Lemberg Academic Center Monday, March 23 about handling businesses in times of financial crisis, global development and how the private sector can make a social impact. Additionally, Rottenberg described what inspired her to help put the word entrepreneur on the radar of developing countries.

"It all started when I was riding in the back of a taxi in Buenos Aires, [Argentina years ago]," said Rottenberg, in a confident voice that reflected her magnetic presence. "I struck up a conversation with the cab driver, who told me he had an engineering degree. I asked him, 'Why are you driving a cab? Shouldn't you be an entrepreneur?'"

Rottenberg continued with a focused tone that reflected involvement in her story and explained that the cab driver had no idea what the word entrepreneur meant.

"I said, 'An entrepreneur ... you know, someone who starts a business.' He replied, 'Oh, you mean an empresario,' meaning the Spanish word for 'big businessman' which is associated with corruption and greed," Rottenberg said.

Rottenberg explained that in Argentina, as well as in countries such as Brazil, Turkey and Egypt, there was no word equivalent to the English term "entrepreneur."

"It was my simple discovery of this fact that led me down the path ... to establish a global framework for those emerging market entrepreneurs with high-gross, innovative businesses," Rottenberg said.

Rottenberg, recently named one of "America's Best Leaders," by US News & World Report, came to Brandeis to accept the 2009 Asper Award for Global Entrepreneurship presented by the International Business School. The Asper Award honors business leaders who have succeeded in markets through creative business strategies, created global connections across cultural and geographic borders and demonstrated commendable corporate citizenship.

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