By Kevin Willer, CEC
Chicago’s entrepreneurial community had a great night last Wednesday evening at the 5th Annual CEC Momentum Awards dinner in Millennium Park . Over 750 Chicago leaders came together to celebrate our past, present, and future entrepreneurs and the people and corporations who support them.
The night kicked off with a networking reception presented by KPMG on the Harris Theater Rooftop where entrepreneurs, corporate execs, government leaders, and venture capitalists reconnected with old friends and made new contacts. Guests then made their way down to the dinner presented by JP Morgan Chase in a huge white tent in Millennium Park. With late October temperatures of 70+ degrees, parts of the tent were left open, so it felt like a mid-summer night in Chicago.
The dinner began with an awesome video highlighting Chicago’s great entrepreneurial history. Then our MC, Anna Davlantes from FOX Chicago took the stage to get things going. I made a few remarks about the incredible energy and momentum happening in Chicago over the last year and specifically talked about our progress at 1871 in terms of members (200!) and programming (60 workshops, 150 office hour sessions each month, 90 big events since opening). I also laid out why the funds raised from tickets and sponsors of the Awards dinner were needed to make the programming at 1871 possible. Every dollar raised from the Momentum Awards will go back into supporting entrepreneurs in Chicago through 1871 and beyond.
I then had the honor of introducing Mayor Rahm Emanuel who has been such a huge supporter of Chicago’s startups through efforts like ThinkChicago and various jobs announcements. The Mayor eloquently spoke about why Chicago should be the best city in the country to build a startup and why more companies should be moving downtown like Motorola Mobility recently announced. He talked about how Chicago has all of the pieces in place, along with organizations like the CEC who are providing the support our early-stage companies need to be successful.
After dinner was served, CEC Co-chair, Jim O’Connor, took the stage to introduce our Entrepreneurial Champion, Michael Ferro. An awesome video was played featuring business leaders as well as Jim Belushi and Dan Aykroyd , old friends to Michael. An incredibly successful entrepreneur who brought his company Click Commerce public at the age of 33, Michael has also served as a past chairman of the CEC. Michael has since started a number of businesses and invested in many more, and has been a mentor to numerous entrepreneurs. Today he is taking on the challenge of turning around the Chicago Sun-Times. He’s a civic treasure and a true entrepreneurial champion.
Jeff Bennett, Managing Director, at Merrick Ventures then introduced the 3 finalists for the Merrick Momentum Award: Trunk Club, Narrative Science, and Braintree. We played a great video about each of the companies and their path to their current success as well as their plans for the future. At the conclusion of the video, Jeff ripped open the envelope and revealed the 2012 winner, Braintree! Bryan Johnson, the founder of Braintree, accepted the award and passionately spoke about his entrepreneurial journey and shared advice with the entrepreneurs in the audience on the importance of what they are doing.
The Corporate Champion award was next and one of the founders of the CEC, JB Pritzker, had the pleasure of introducing our inaugural winner, JP Morgan Chase & Midwest Chairman, Glenn Tilton. Glenn spoke about the many contributions JP Morgan Chase has made to support entrepreneurs in Chicago, both philanthropically through 1871, Chicago Ideas Week, and Technori, and through their business efforts as the top lender to small businesses in the country. Glenn is a captain of industry (energy, transportation, and now banking) who understands the importance of Entrepreneurship and Innovation in driving a 21st century economy in Chicago. He is a civic leader and has co-chaired the Chicago Plan for Economic Growth & Jobs. We are lucky to have him committed to Chicago.
The evening concluded with a few thank you’s from yours truly and the announcement by our dinner co-chairs that the evening had raised $1.5M to support Chicago entrepreneurs. But the night wasn’t over, many in the audience joined 150 entrepreneurs at the Momentum Awards Afterparty back on the Harris Theater rooftop presented by AON. The theater was incredibly transformed into a nightclub with a full stage for a concert performed by our startup band – the 1871ders!
Wednesday, October 24th, 2012 was an amazing night of celebration and fundraising for Chicago entrepreneurs. Many people commented that this night may be a point in time we look back on a few years down the road as the moment our community came together and showed that Chicago truly is the best place in the country to start a business.
