Elizabeth Gatewood, Ph.D.
Director, Office of Entrepreneurship and Liberal Arts
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Dr. Gatewood leads Wake Forest's efforts to instill entrepreneurial thinking and action across campus. Previously, she was the Jack M. Gill Chair of Entrepreneurship and Director of The Johnson Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation at Indiana University. Prior to her role at Indiana University, Dr. Gatewood was the Executive Director of the Gulf Coast Small Business Development Center Network, an organization providing training and consulting services to entrepreneurs and small business owners in the greater Houston region. Dr. Gatewood also founded and served as director of the Center for Business and Economic Studies at the University of Georgia.

In 2004 Entrepreneur magazine named Dr. Gatewood one of the top ten entrepreneurship center directors in the country. She has written more than 80 articles, book chapters and monographs on entrepreneurial processes, women entrepreneurs and economic development. She is also a past recipient of the Academy of Management's Advocate Award for outstanding contributions to the field of entrepreneurship.

Dr. Gatewood is a member of the Diana project, a research study of women business owners and equity capital access. In 2007, the Diana project members won the FSF-NUTEK Award, a prestigious international award given annually in recognition of outstanding entrepreneurship and small business research. Dr. Gatewood is a graduate of Purdue University where she earned a bachelor's degree in psychology. She received her masters in business administration and her doctorate from the University of Georgia.

Lisa Burton
Grant Administrator, Office of Entrepreneurship and Liberal Arts
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Ms. Burton has been with the University since 1998. Before joining the Entrepreneurship and Liberal Arts program she worked with the division of Student Life assisting in the coordination of campus leadership, volunteer and new student orientation programs. Ms. Burton worked for the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County School System for many years before joing WFU. Ms. Burton received her B.S. from High Point University.

Bill Conner, Ph.D
Program Director, Curriculum Initiatives
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Dr. Bill Conner is a Professor in the Department of Biology where he teaches an introductory course in Comparative Physiology and upper-level courses in Animal Behavior and Insect Biology. He has also taught first-year seminars entitled "Life's Devices", "Environmental Leadership and Ethics", "Biological Innovation and Entrepreneurship", and "Biomimetics: Nature's Way". His research interests include Chemical Ecology, Insect Chemical Communication, Insect Acoustic Communication, and Bat-Moth Interactions. He is interested in entrepreneurship because he believes that innovations are frequently made at the interfaces of disciplines where new paradigms can lead to discovery. He and his students are currently funded by the National Science Foundation and the National Geographic Society. For more information see http://www.wfu.edu/academics/biology/faculty/conner.htm.

J. Bren Varner
Program Director, University Center for Entrepreneurship
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Bren Varner manages the co-curricular initiatives for the Wake Forest Entrepreneurship and Liberal Arts program. As Director for the University Center for Entrepreneurship, he advises students and student groups looking to further explore the field of entrepreneurship and start new ventures. Mr. Varner is also an adjunct faculty member in the Wayne Calloway School of Business and Accountancy, where he teaches classes in entrepreneurship. Prior to coming to Wake Forest, Mr. Varner worked with numerous entrepreneurial ventures and has provided merger and acquisition advisory services for companies in the software and IT industries. Mr. Varner received his bachelor's degree in business from Wake Forest University and his master's degree in business administration from the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia.

Lynn Book
Associate Professor of Theatre and Dance
Program Director, Program for Creativity and Innovation, Faculty Fellow in Creativity
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Lynn Book is an innovative educator, internationally recognized performance artist and creativity consultant who recently relocated from New York City to Winston-Salem, North Carolina to accept a position as Faculty Fellow in Creativity for the Entrepreneurship and Liberal Arts Program. She has contributed to the development of groundbreaking programs that foster innovations in new media in Chicago: The School of the Art Institute (1985-95), in New York City: The Sidney Kahn Kitchen Summer Institute (2000-05) and in Austria at the Transart Institute, Europe’s first low-residency MFA program for new media, where she continues as an associate since 2005. She has a BFA in sculpture and an MFA in performance art and media studies. Her performance career has included citations, fellowships and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts and MacArthur Foundation. Her most recent projects include notes on desire, an evolving concert framework for a collection of voice/text compositions. Ms. Book premiered Running Skywards, a new interactive performance media project at Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art in March 2007 and received the Archie Fund for Faculty Excellence at Wake Forest to support research for the project. Ms. Book founded Voicelab, an educational and cultural center, in New York City in 1999 through which she taught, coached and produced multifaceted events featuring innovative approaches to performance and new media. One of the programs she initiated included R & R (Release and Regenerate), an on-site service for internet and other small business start-ups in New York City. Ms. Book’s foray into the field of commercial voice work has included creative voice production for Steven Spielberg’s Men in Black. Ms. Book organized the extremely successful national symposium Creativity: Worlds in the Making which took place in March 2009. Click here to read more. 

John Ceneviva --Mr. Ceneviva joined The University Center for Entrepreneurship in 2009 where he will be responsible for implementing many of the Center’s programs designed to foster entrepreneurial thinking and action among students from all academic disciplines. He also guides independent studies (ESE 391), internships (ESE 350) and provides ongoing mentoring for our many student entrepreneurs.
Mr. Ceneviva is a marketing and sales executive with over 30 years experience with leading packaged goods companies such as Johnson and Johnson and Sara Lee Branded Apparel (currently HanesBrands).  At Sara Lee, Mr.Ceneviva held numerous executive positions including the Senior Vice President of Marketing  for the $3.0 Billion Hanes and Hanes Her Way, the Corporation’s largest  brand asset. Mr. Ceneviva is currently an associate with Piazza Investment Holdings LLC, a firm with the mission of identifying and developing new business ventures that utilize innovative, proprietary technology to create breakthrough consumer products. He is also a partner with Piedmont Web Solutions, a firm focused on creating and managing eCommerce platforms for companies looking to develop a profitable direct to consumer distribution channel.  Mr. Ceneviva has a BA in Economics from Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia and an MBA from the University of North Carolina.