About Our Center

MISSION

Our mission is to provide high-quality research, entrepreneurship education and services that spur innovation and small business opportunity throughout Central & Eastern Virginia. We have a specific emphasis on assisting the region's large minority, military and veteran, and student populations with launching and operating successful, socially-responsible ventures that lead to economic growth for the regions we serve.

VISION

To become the primary producer of quality, relevant, and policy-impacting academic research on and provider of formal entrepreneurship education, training, and networking opportunities for small businesses, minority entrepreneurs, veterans, aspiring student entrepreneurs, agribusiness, and social entrepreneurs in the Central Eastern Virginia region.

Our efforts, as well as our facilitation of intraorganizational collaborative efforts of other entrepreneurship-support organizations, will ultimately increase the entrepreneurship rate and economic productivity of diverse groups of entrepreneurs in our state.

VALUES

Our center emphasizes dispersing entrepreneurial opportunity, collaboration with existing entrepreneurship-support organizations, and embedding a sense of social responsibility to aspiring and existing entrepreneurs.

We do this via our commitment to developing quality, policy-impacting research, offering innovative and accessible educational programs, serving as a central hub of valuable existing resources for entrepreneurs offered by public and private not-for-profit organizations, and inspiring all of our entrepreneurs to develop business models that prioritize positively contributing to society.

ADVISORY TASK FORCE

Our task force is comprised of experienced faculty and staff with the ability to guide the Center's efforts in the development and administration of our programs and services.

Dr. Emmanuel

Omojokun,

Dean, Reginald F. Lewis College of Business

Dr. Venkat Mummalaneni,

Associate Dean & Chair Dept. of Management and Marketing, Reginald F. Lewis College of Business

Mr. Jonathan Young,

Director of Corporate Relations

Reginald F. Lewis College of Business

Mr. Mario White,

Director of Development

Reginald F. Lewis College of Business

Dr. Perry-Rivers serves as the Center’s Director. Her primary emphasis is on the development of the Center’s initial programs and educational offerings, publication of substantive entrepreneurship research, initiation of the Center's web and social media presences, and maintaining vital relationships with the entrepreneurship academic community. Dr. Perry-Rivers has 15 years of experience in corporate marketing and advertising for the large media conglomerate that owned the Weather Channel and numerous other television stations and newspapers across the country. In addition, she is a former entrepreneur who owned and managed a real estate team generating over $16 million in annual sales and which ranked in the top 10% of realtors within Hampton Roads, a top forty U.S. market, within its first 3 years of existence. In her corporate and entrepreneurship roles, she was responsible for generating and/or managing millions of dollars, hundreds of clients, and very high levels of productivity.

Dr. Perry-Rivers is committed to producing relevant, policy-impacting academic research, and has published several scholarly articles to that end. Her research efforts focus on minority entrepreneurship, resource position and entrepreneurial strategy, social entrepreneurship, and corporate social responsibility--including issues surrounding workplace diversity and consumer discrimination. Her research is published in Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, the Journal of Ethics and Entrepreneurship, and has been presented at several noteworthy academic conferences, including the Academy of Management annual conference, the United States Association of Small Business Educators (USASBE) annual conference, and New York University's Annual Social Entrepreneurship Conference.

She brings both her scholarly training and practical experience into the classroom, and seeks to inspire students toward success in their own careers. As an academic and professor, she has received numerous fellowships and scholarships, presented her research on entrepreneurial strategy, social entrepreneurship, and minority entrepreneurship at notable academic conferences, created research for publication in academic journals, and taught at the college level for over 7 years. Finally, she has a keen sense of social responsibility. She has co-founded or served on the boards for social enterprises and community organizations that seek to bolster the long-term economic productivity of at-risk youth and disadvantaged groups in Hampton Roads and Richmond. She seeks to embed the same strong sense of social responsibility into the activities of the center, and the management and entrepreneurship courses she teaches.

Dr. Patrice Perry-Rivers

Director, Center for Entrepreneurship

Asst. Professor, Department of Management and Marketing, Reginald F. Lewis College of Business

B.A.,     University of Virginia

M.B.A., Regent University

Ph.D.,   Rutgers Business School,

             Rutgers University

Mr. Louis Dabney,

Asst. Professor

of Management

Reginald F. Lewis College of Business