Dean Veloso spoke to Imperial alumnus and Babson College President, Stephen Spinelli Jr. (PhD 1994) who shared his career highlights and experience during this fireside chat event. With a entrepreneurial background, Stephen had some great advice for entrepreneurs, as well as discussing why he is so driven to work in education.
Speaking about this time at Imperial he said: "It is a great honour to be part of the Imperial community. It was the most rigorous and intellectual experience of my life, in academia or outside of it. The intensity and focus, the setting, the people I studied with and the professors I studied with were worldclass."
My time at Imperial made me understand that it was possible to apply intellectual rigour to the entrepreneurship process. The idea that thought and action are intimate partners in this process was incredibly interesting to me. Intellectual maturity made me more creative and allowed me the degrees of freedom to explore.
Watch the full interview here.
Speaker biography
Stephen Spinelli Jr., PhD, MBA’92 is the 14th president of Babson College. A successful entrepreneur, academic leader, and scholar, Dr. Spinelli assumed the role of president in July 2019, guiding the College through its centennial year and into its second century. A lifelong entrepreneur, Dr. Spinelli has spent his career at the intersection of academia, business, and philanthropy. He co-founded Jiffy Lube International and was chairman and CEO of the American Oil Change Corporation, helping to pioneer the quick-lube industry nationwide and turning Jiffy Lube into the nation’s dominant competitor with more than 1,000 service centers.
As a long-standing member of the Babson community, Dr. Spinelli spent 14 years of his career as a member of the College’s faculty, vice provost for entrepreneurship and global management, and director of The Arthur M. Blank Center for Entrepreneurship. During his tenure at Babson, Dr. Spinelli played a number of critical and influential roles. He was an influential member of both the President’s Cabinet and the Academic Council, as well as chair of the entrepreneurship task force that contributed significantly to the College’s strategic plan. He led the charge to maintain Babson’s No. 1 ranking for entrepreneurship in U.S. News & World Report and to achieve, for the first time, the No. 1 ranking for entrepreneurship in Financial Times in 2006 (repeating in 2007).
In 2011, Dr. Spinelli was inducted into Babson’s Alumni Entrepreneur Hall of Fame. Dr. Spinelli earned his PhD in economics from Imperial College Business School, his MBA from Babson College, and his BA in economics from McDaniel College. In 2016, he received the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters from Ulster University in Northern Ireland.
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