Senior MIT Sloan lecturer, former president of Fidelity Investment, and executive chair of MFS Investment Management Bob Pozen led Ringling College of Art and Design’s students through a weekend of creative entrepreneurship workshops. Posen was joined by fellow lecturer on entrepreneurship at MIT Sloan Susan Neal, who is also the director of the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship.
The workshops were hosted by the College’s Business of Art and Design major but were open to all majors. Students from Illustration, Graphic Design, Motion Design, Computer Animation, Game Art, Virtual Reality Development, Entertainment Design, Visual Studies, and Business of Art and Design attended.
The workshops were designed to teach students the basics of starting a business and included topics such as entrepreneurship, identifying a problem to solve, conducting primary market research, and deciding on a business model.
Juanes Davila ’26, Business of Art and Design, shared, “This workshop taught me the importance of having a great co-founder(s) to build a strong business foundation and that the key to delivering a compelling pitch was starting with the problem to immediately engage investors. Also, the guest speaker, an entrepreneur, provided very valuable business insights that made the experience unique.”
Neal and Pozen led students through a series of activities and talks on topics ranging from pitching your company to the fundraising landscape and an introduction to different business models.
Angie Boonsiri ’25, Business of Art and Design described the affect of the activity based learning model they implemented: “The entrepreneurship workshop was a rare opportunity to learn from the top of the game. Rather than a traditional lecture, it was an interactive, hands-on experience where we worked on an idea of our own, making it much more engaging. The chance to pitch our concepts at the end was particularly rewarding. I walked away with a deeper understanding of the essential dos and don’ts of launching a startup, as well as key strategies for ensuring its long-term success.”
The duo brought a range of experiences from start-ups to finance. In addition to her experience as a lecturer and her time with the Martin Trust Center, Neal was also the founder of a San Francisco-based startup, Atacama, Inc. Posen teaches a course at MIT on financial innovation and brought that no-how to the College.
“We are so grateful to Bob Pozen for sponsoring this event and bringing in Susan Neal as co-instructor throughout the weekend, shared Business of Art and Design Department Head Kathleen Sobr. “This “crash course” experience provided students of all majors with a unique opportunity to learn the essentials of starting their own business, and for many of them, it was their first foray into these topics.”
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