Two months after Howard Tullman announced his replacement at 1871, the Chicago entrepreneur and tech investor is ready for his next challenge.
The Illinois Institute of Technology announced Monday that Tullman will be the first executive director for the school’s Ed Kaplan Family Institute for Innovation and Tech Entrepreneurship. Tullman, who became the CEO of 1871 in 2013, officially left the Chicago incubator and tech hub this month. Betsy Ziegler, the former chief innovation officer at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, was named as Tullman’s replacement.
Tullman will now be tasked with leading a new innovation hub, this time at the university level. The Kaplan Institute will be a “hub for discovery, innovation, and business creation,” the school says. The 70,000-square-foot space, which is expected to open in October, will help give students the resources they need to get their businesses off the ground.


“It’s really a fresh start,” Tullman said in an interview. “This will be a hub to bring together all the schools at the university, all the departments, all the expertise into a place to provide entrepreneurial and innovation training for all these engineers.”
The innovation hub is the first new academic building built on Illinois Tech’s main campus in more than 40 years. The building will house a maker space, project rooms, and classes geared toward giving students the skills needed to bring their innovations to market.
Tullman, 72, is known as one of the city’s most accomplished serial entrepreneurs. He has founded more than a dozen companies, including CCC Information Services and Tribeca Flashpoint College. Tullman will begin his new role on May 1.
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