Entrepreneurship Summit Connects Students and Alumni With Shared Interests The 2025 Entrepreneurship Summit brought students together for networking, honing their pitch skills and sharing ideas with alumni.

A panel talk at the 2025 Entrepreneurship Summit

“The summit brings together a unique mix of inspiration, mentorship and momentum.”

~ Sofia Iuteri ’27

Jay Margalus, director of Washington and Lee University’s Connolly Center for Entrepreneurship, has seen firsthand how the Entrepreneurship Summit can be a turning point for students.

A student in one of his fall courses followed up with an email after this year’s summit, which was held April 11-13, writing, “With the new connections and advice I gained at the summit, I’d like to change my answer to the question you asked us at the end of our class: ‘Would you ever want to own your own business?’ My new answer is yes, absolutely.” Margalus said, “Seeing that shift is pretty cool.”

The Entrepreneurship Summit, a collaboration between the Connolly Center for Entrepreneurship and the Office of Career and Professional Development, is a two-day event that brings together current students of all majors and alumni with an interest in entrepreneurship or who have launched their own business ventures. The 2025 summit saw an increase in participation this year, with 150 students and over 100 alumni, faculty and staff registered.

The event included presentations and panels featuring alumni offering insight into emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency, launching consumer brands, entrepreneurial acquisitions and building lifestyle brands. Ward Waltemath ’97, managing director for the technology, media and telecommunications group at Goldman Sachs, and Ethan Smith ’10, CEO and co-founder of Spur, served as the summit’s keynote speakers.

The summit also included a Student Showcase, which allowed 35 teams to pitch their products in booths set up in a trade show format in the Harte Center. Attendees voted for their favorite ideas, with the top selections advancing to a second pitch competition later that day. Margalus said this year’s cohort of student presenters brought tangible products to their pitches that, in many cases, were already generating revenue.

“They were able to pitch those products, and alumni were able to use them while they were here,” Margalus said.

The first-prize winner of the event’s pitch competition was Bailey Jordan ’25, business and politics double major from Charlotte, North Carolina, whose pitch for her baking business, Biscuits & Bites, received accolades from her peers and alumni in attendance. Jordan began generating sales revenue quickly after receiving seed funding from the Connolly Entrepreneurship Society last year, which allowed her to purchase a long-awaited KitchenAid mixer and begin filling orders on campus. Jordan hopes to expand her business during Spring Term using her prize money and said Margalus was instrumental in crafting her pitch.

“I think the summit has so much value for students to practice getting their ideas in front of alumni who genuinely want to help them and see other Generals succeed,” Jordan said. “Although I was nervous to put myself out there in such a public manner, the weeks leading up to the summit taught me so much about my business, capabilities as a founder and crafting the message I wanted alumni to take away. I was shocked when I won, but very excited to see so many alumni supporting and believing in my company and in me.”

Students introduced their businesses to alumni during the Student Showcase in the Harte Center.

Chris Datz ’26, a business administration major and creative writing minor from West Chester, Pennsylvania, said the summit provides the perfect opportunity for student entrepreneurs to get a fresh perspective on their ideas.

“The intrinsic value of the summit is for us to be told what we’re doing wrong,” Datz said, “or what we could be doing better. It’s great to receive compliments and good lucks, but it’s even better for someone to say, ‘You’re doing this totally wrong.’ We may or may not agree, but this offers the opportunity to see things from a different perspective.”

Datz and his team began working on their fitness-focused popsicle brand Pro Pop during fall 2024 and quickly began turning a profit through order forms circulated on campus.

“The Connolly Entrepreneurship Society and the Connolly Entrepreneurship Center have been vital in allowing us to find different avenues for growth, as well as for receiving feedback from experienced entrepreneurs,” Datz said. “This has allowed us to tailor our business as we continue to move forward toward selling popsicles on a wider scale.”

Sofia Iuteri ’27, an economics and environmental studies double major with a minor in entrepreneurship from Greenwich, Connecticut, is the founder of The Experience Exchange. This student-led print magazine explores the intersection of nature, sustainability and self-discovery. Iuteri launched the publication to fill a creative gap she observed on campus, offering students a space to reflect on their personal experiences with nature. The magazine has started generating revenue through local advertising and subscriptions. Looking ahead, Iuteri hopes to expand the magazine’s distribution regionally and nationally, grow its contributor base and launch complementary projects such as storytelling workshops and a podcast.

At the Entrepreneurship Summit, she presented her work during the Student Showcase, an opportunity for students to field questions from alumni and students in a trade show-style format. She also participated in a panel discussion on risk-taking, sharing insights from her journey as both a nonprofit and LLC founder (she founded the nonprofit Hats4Healing as a high schooler). She credits Margalus for his mentorship and for introducing her to the concept of the “extinction of experience,” a term that describes the growing disconnect between people and the natural world, which became central to the magazine’s mission. For Iuteri, the summit represents a powerful convergence of inspiration, mentorship and opportunity — a space that empowers students to take creative risks and forge their own paths.

“The summit brings together a unique mix of inspiration, mentorship and momentum,” Iuteri said. “The event showcases entrepreneurs of various stages and proves to students that if courageous enough to build something from scratch, they can make a meaningful impact and forge their own path rather than following a predetermined one.”

Anushka Daunt, assistant professor of business administration, Jay Margalus, Johnson Professor of Entrepreneurship and Leadership and director of the Connolly Center for Entrepreneurship, and Emily Landry, assistant professor of business administration

Since its launch in 2012, the Entrepreneurship Summit has fostered meaningful connections through panels, networking opportunities and mentorship, often leading to internships and job offers. Margalus highlighted several key changes that made this year’s summit more inclusive and participatory. One major shift was introducing an “unconference” panel session, which allowed any attendee to join the discussion by tapping themselves in, even if they weren’t previously signed up. Additionally, instead of exclusively inviting participants to sit on panels, the organizers issued a call for panel proposals. This new approach allowed first-time contributors to get involved and present, fostering a more diverse and dynamic lineup.

“I thought this was one of the best Entrepreneurship Summits I have attended due to the increased student engagement with alumni,” said Blair Garrou ’94, who serves as chairman of the CES Advisory Board. “Student participation greatly increased, from attending event panels, to displaying their entrepreneurship projects, and finally from presenting their business models during the student pitch competition. I also enjoyed hearing the student-led Connelley Entrepreneurship Society Board discuss their goals for CES, how they have grown the organization during their time as students, and how they could benefit from more alumni involvement in mentoring student-run businesses.”

Garrou added that he enjoyed speaking one-on-one with the student teams about their business plans and obstacles that they contended with as they considered the future.

“Every year I’m always amazed at the resourcefulness and thoughtfulness of W&L’s student entrepreneurs, and I really enjoy helping them think through challenges they are having in taking their startups to market,” Garrou said.  “I hope they get as much out of the interactions with alumni as we do from them.”

Another change to the program this year was the addition of an award category in the pitch competition, funded by the Algernon Sydney Sullivan Foundation, which provided a $1,000 prize for a student-led business with a high social impact. The winner was an organization called Lexington Literacy Fellows, a web-based platform created by Byron Newman ’26, a business administration major and data science minor from Catonsville, Maryland; Bella Ferrate ’26, a business administration major and Japanese minor from Salem, Virginia; and Dmitri Tulloch ’26, an economics and journalism minor from Deer Park, New York designed to match college students as tutors with students in nearby public schools. As recipients of the Sullivan Impact Prize at W&L, they will be paired with a foundation business coach and mentor, can participate in an optional foundation accelerator program and will take part in a pitch competition through the foundation that provides the winner with up to $10,000 in follow-on funding.

Learn more about the Entrepreneurship Summit and the Connolly Center for Entrepreneurship.