2012 CEOs at CES Dinner

On Jan­u­ary 11, Lon­er­gan Part­ners host­ed our sixth annu­al CEO din­ner at the 2012 Con­sumer Elec­tron­ics Show held in Las Vegas. Over thir­ty tech­nol­o­gy CEOs were in atten­dance, rep­re­sent­ing mul­ti­ple indus­tries and regions of the world. This event was host­ed by Part­ners Mark Lon­er­gan and Dot­ty Schaffer.

At the din­ner, guest speak­er Hank Noth­haft shared research based on his best sell­ing book Great Again: Revi­tal­iz­ing America’s Entre­pre­neur­ial Lead­er­ship. Hank is the for­mer CEO of sev­er­al high-tech com­pa­nies such as Tessera, Con­cen­tric Net­works, Dan­ger and David Systems.

Our din­ner focused on the inno­va­tion rev­o­lu­tion in the con­sumer elec­tron­ics mar­ket. CEOs lead that inno­va­tion charge, and we were pleased to be joined by many of the top Con­sumer Elec­tron­ics lead­ers at our event.

Mark Lon­er­gan, Founder & Senior Part­ner, Lon­er­gan Partners

Hank’s book Great Again should be required read­ing in this year when we elect a new Pres­i­dent. With­out being polit­i­cal­ly ide­o­log­i­cal at all, this book chal­lenges us to con­sid­er what mat­ters in busi­ness inno­va­tion. I have rec­om­mend­ed it to many friends and no mat­ter what their back­ground, they learn from it.

Dot­ty Schaf­fer, Part­ner, Lon­er­gan Partners

Highlights from Hank's Talk

  • Inno­va­tion is key to sus­tain­ing the Amer­i­can economy
  • The US Con­gress has a poor track record of encour­ag­ing innovation
  • The US Patent Office is under­fund­ed and political
  • Immi­gra­tion reform will be need­ed to sus­tain a flow of tech­ni­cal stu­dents to Amer­i­can universities

The book has been very well reviewed, includ­ing by Eric Hip­peau, CEO of the Huff­in­g­ton Post, who had this to say: ​“When Hank Noth­haft says, ​‘I am the son of a steel­work­er, and I did not work my whole life cre­at­ing jobs and wealth just to spend my gold­en years in some Banana Repub­lic of Sil­i­con Val­ley,’ we hear a pow­er­ful voice speak­ing up for all Amer­i­cans. Whether you’re on the left or the right, this book makes uncom­mon­ly good sense. Plus, it’s a ter­rif­ic read.”