Harvard University

StartupCircle Presents: Robert Lynch, Being an Entrepreneur "The Real Truth about Success and Failure"

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• published: 19 Oct 2010
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Robert Porter Lynch CEO – The Warren Company A Network of Alliance Professionals Personal: Mr. Lynch is listed in Who's Who: Global Leaders. He is founding Chairman of the Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals, and has chaired the Strategic Integration and Alliance Committee of the Common Enterprise initiative of the State of the World Forum. He served as a Lieutenant in the US Navy, with combat duty in Vietnam. Robert resides in Naples, Florida. Thought Leadership: Mr. Lynch has been recognized for his groundbreaking work in creating "the architecture of cooperation" which underpins thousands of strategic alliances in this country and around the world. He has written several books and the profession’s first benchmarking studies. He pioneered the initial research in Alliance Architectures with Best Practices research beginning in 1988, followed by a series of bench-marking studies in Alliance Formation and Management in 1993, Strategic Sourcing in 1997, and e-Commerce in 1999. Mr. Lynch continues his quest to discover and innovate in the Strategic Alliance Profession. Robert is deeply engaged in the next edge of cooperation, specifically using Alliances as Engines of Innovation, the Leadership Role of Alliance Champions, the Architecture of Trust, Synergistic Negotiations, and the New Economics of Synergistic Systems. Economic Development: While a community revitalization specialist in the 1970's, he designed and implemented private-public partnerships for urban commercial and neighborhood revitalization programs resulting in over $20 million in new business investments and hundreds of historic restorations of low income neighborhood homes in declining inner cities. Robert also established joint labor-management committees to improve labor productivity in both the private and public sectors. 1980, at a time when interest rates were 18-20%, Robert became a Development Banker, founding a Certified Development Company, which resulted in over $20 million in small business loans in the first 18 months, as well as a state program to use $10 million in public sector pension funds to underwrite small business loans. Several years later he transformed an old factory into an innovative technology business "incubator" occupied by 65 growing companies. He developed business strategies, plans, marketing programs, debt/equity financing for numerous of these incubating businesses, assisting many of these smaller businesses in forming strategic alliances to launch their growth during a time when bank and venture capital money was extremely scarce. He also was instrumental in founding a high technology consortium. As an entrepreneur, Robert has developed, owned, and operated several commercial real estate projects including apartments, offices, marina, and retail. In one urban neighborhood, to catalyze the revitalization effort he restored a historic building, transforming it into a $1 million award-winning restaurant/inn which was cited in major travel guides and restaurant reviews for excellence and innovation. He also conducted feasibility studies for shopping centers, housing projects, hotels, and offices. Consulting: In his consulting practice, Mr. Lynch places a strong emphasis on using best-practice architectures for successful organizational transformation and building capability inside organizations, for clients, strategic implementation is where the real value lies. He and his team have focused their efforts on building alliances for scores of companies throughout the globe in a wide variety industries ranging from aerospace (aviation & defense), automotive, energy, financial services (banking, real estate, insurance), high tech (computers, electronics, telecommunications,) and medical (biotech, heath care, instrumentation, pharmaceutical, managed health care), and petro-chemicals. His clients have included AT&T;, Accenture, Astra-Merck, AT&T;, Bell Canada, BellSouth, Cisco Systems, Dow Chemical, Dupont, Eli Lilly, GE, Glaxo-Smith Kline, Hewlett Packard, Honeywell, IBM, Intuit, Lockheed-Martin, Lucent, Media One, Mobil, NCR, PacBell, Price Waterhouse Coopers, Procter & Gamble, Prudential, Smith Kline Beecham, Sprint, Thomsen Financial, USAA, Warner Lambert, Wells Fargo, and Xerox as well as small businesses and governmental agencies. Author: To fill the gap in understanding and operating cooperative ventures, Mr. Lynch enjoys writing. He wrote the award winning book, The Practical Guide to Joint Ventures and Corporate Alliances (John Wiley & Sons, 1987), which is based on his own experiences along with scores of other managers operating "in the trenches." The "architecture of cooperation" is the focus of his best selling book, Business Alliances: The Hidden Competitive Weapon, (John Wiley & Sons, 1993), which details the state-of-the-art in alliance formation, design, and operations. He wrote the popular chapter “Fostering Champions” for Peter Drucker’s Leader of the Future book (1999). H