CSC News

Labcorp Speakers Series Welcomes Alumnus, Drew Banks

Please join us on November 18th at 6:30 p.m. in room 1231 in Engineering Building 2 for the final lecture in our Fall Labcorp “Leadership in Technology” Speakers Series. 

Our special guest speaker will be Drew Banks, retired tech entrepreneur and CSC and EE alumnus.  His topic will be “Navigating a Successful Tech Career:  Understanding the Tradeoffs of Each Decision.”

Banks is a seasoned tech entrepreneur and executive passionate about visual communications, disruptive solutions, global hyper-growth, low bureaucracy, and fast execution.

His nearly four-decade tech career began in 1982 as an intern at SAS Institute while he attended NC State University, earning dual BS's in CSC and EE. After graduation - and a two-year detour to NYC where he dabbled in the performing arts - Banks went to business school at MIT Sloan and then out to San Francisco where he spent the next three decades and still lives to this day.

Banks ran the gamut in Silicon Valley from big company to small. He's a self-proclaimed accidental entrepreneur who tripped into his own (failed) startup world, and now advises other entrepreneurs how to grow, fund, and sell theirs. He's particularly attracted to early-stage European companies with global potential. His last two companies - Prezi and Drops - are prime examples of this profile. Because of his breadth of experience, he has a unique perspective on how to forge a bespoke career path that keeps you engaged every step of the way.

Banks is also both a business author and novelist having written and published four books. He's working on his fifth ... and a screenplay.

Abstract:  If at first you don't succeed, fail fast and learn from your mistakes. Drew will review lessons learned over two decades of spectacular Silicon Valley failures - lessons that he then parlayed into a subsequent decade helping take European startups to the global marketplace while avoiding the many pitfalls he encountered along the way.

The event is free and open to the public.  Ample free parking is available on Centennial Campus after 5 pm.  For directions and more information, click here.

***Masks are required for the 'in person' talk. Consult University COVID guidelines for the current directives. If you are unable or uncomfortable joining us in person, the talk will be broadcasted live at https://go.ncsu.edu/labcorpspeakerseries. As always, talks will be videotaped and made available (pending speaker approval) on a dedicated YouTube channel.***

These lectures have been approved by the CSC Graduate Oversight Committee to count toward the required lectures for graduate students.

~coates~