Entrepreneurship means more than starting your own business for Director for the Colin & Erika Angle Center for Entrepreneurship and Assistant Dean in the Curtis L. Gerrish School of Business Deirdre Sartorelli—to her, it’s a mindset. Sartorelli, who truly embodies what it means to be an entrepreneur, is dedicated to educating students how to be business savvy, successful entrepreneurs, while also empowering them to take the often risky first step and give their big idea a go.
To say she keeps busy at Endicott would be an understatement. Between teaching, acting as the faculty advisor for the College’s business & technology student-led accelerator FUEL, mentoring, and doing community outreach to secure local and national partnerships that will provide endless opportunities for students to learn the ins and outs of what it means to start your own business, Sartorelli is fully-engrained in positioning Endicott as a leader in the innovation community.
Sartorelli’s involvement extends way beyond Endicott as well. Chances are that if you’ve heard of a recent innovation event, leadership panel, or business pitch competition, Sartorelli made an appearance by joining the panel, hosting, or judging. In fact, this past summer she was a judge for The Entrepreneurship World Cup (EWC), a global business pitch challenge spanning close to 200 countries. Sartorelli’s personal criteria for the competition? “I want to be told a story based on evidence and customer discovery. Convince me you understand what it is like to be in the shoes of your customer and wrap that customer understanding with how your product or service will profoundly change her experience for the better,” she says.
“I’ve always believed that no one organization can do it all for entrepreneurs but that, together, we can. By helping to curate as many entrepreneurial events as possible, I’m confident we will have increased awareness of just how much is happening in our region north of Boston.”—Deirdre Sartorelli
Sartorelli plans to continue to insert herself into the innovation conversations happening locally, regionally, and globally, and by doing so, shaping the entrepreneurship program at Endicott to be a role model for other higher education institutions.