Welsh_Lecture_1DIANNE H.B. WELSH is the Hayes Distinguished Professor of Entrepreneurship at The University of North Carolina Greensboro, Founding Director of the North Carolina Entrepreneurship Center (2009-2011) and Founding Director of the Entrepreneurship Cross-Disciplinary Entrepreneurship Center, and Director of the Coleman Entrepreneurship Fellows Program. She previously held endowed chairs at two universities where she started entrepreneurship centers. Dianne is a recognized scholar in entrepreneurship, family business, and franchising and has six books and over 150 publications. She is President of the Small Business Institute®, the Past President and a Fellow of the U.S. Association for Small Business & Entrepreneurship, and was a Presidential Appointee to the Board of Visitors for the U.S. Air Force Academy and a member of the Defense Advisory Committee for Women in the Services. She was invited by the United Nations to deliver the keynote address on Women and Entrepreneurship last November and served on the first NC Innovation Council. As the architect of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro’s Entrepreneurship Program, she won the Best Practices Award from the Small Business Institute, the Global Consortium of Entrepreneurship Center’s Excellence in Entrepreneurship across the Curriculum Award, and the U.S. Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship’s Outstanding Emerging Entrepreneurship Program Award in 2012. The Entrepreneurship Program is a recipient of the Coleman Entrepreneurship Fellows Program for three years. The Entrepreneurship Program is the largest in the U.S. for a school of our size and stature, with 40 courses across campus in 20 departments. Dianne founded both the Southern Entrepreneurship in the Arts Conferences, SEA Regionals, at Tampa/St. Petersburg, Florida (University of Tampa), and Greensboro, North Carolina (University of North Carolina at Greensboro).