The Howard Tullman Story
The Howard Tullman Story
Howard Tullman, CEO of 1871 Chicago; Incredible Entrepreneur; Famed Startup Advisor; and Prolific Speaker
If the answer isn’t, “Running my two profitable businesses,” don’t worry…it just means you’re not Howard Tullman.
Howard’s success didn’t stop in middle school. He founded Certified Collateral Corporation and, after it spent four years as the fastest growing company in Illinois, he sold it for $100 million. Since then, Howard has founded 13 other companies and has served as an advisor and senior executive for several more notable companies.
His greatest achievements are his freakishly incredible turnarounds …this is the story of how Howard Tullman saved Kendall College from collapse and turned it into the iconic award winning culinary school it is today, in just 100 days.
When Howard was named President of Kendall in 2003, the hospitality and culinary school was struggling. The obvious choices were to shut it down or sell it. But Howard chose door number three: save it.
Howard got right to business. He stripped Kendall down to create a new core mission and removed all the non-essential curriculum. In other words he saved what made it great, and removed the anchors weighing it down. Right away, Howard finagled a lucrative contract training Navy cooks. He sold the outdated, suburban campus for $10 million and reinvested it in a state-of-the-art location in Chicago. He then raised $50 million to support the upgrade and rebranded Kendall as an elite culinary school. All in 100 days. 100 fricken days.
Three years later, he arranged a profitable sale of Kendall College.
How’d he do it? He put in long hours. He was persistent. He had grit. As he said, himself, “hard work, not brilliance, wins the day, no matter what field you’re in.”
And after giving Kendall new life, Howard took the lessons he’d learned and started Tribeca Flashpoint Academy, Chicago’s premier digital art school. But why stop there? There’s always more work to be done, more lessons to learn – so Howard shifted over as CEO of Chicago’s iconic 1871, where he helps advise 325 startups.
He knows what matters to entrepreneurs who are truly successful. “It’s not about luxury, it’s not about big cars, and it’s not about money. It’s about waking up every day and being enthusiastic about the work you’re doing because it’s meaningful and challenging.”
So, maybe you didn’t have two businesses when you were 10…you weren’t Howard Tullman. But you can absolutely learn from his success as an entrepreneur. Come to BIZFIT2015 and learn from Howard’s experiences so that you can pivot to meet new challenges and jump into the hard work necessary to make a real change.
P.S. Take a page from Howard’s book and be decisive – registration is filling up out quickly and we’re already out of earlybird tickets. Register now to hear Howard’s whole story, plus learn from our 19 other speakers.
