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Jeff Hoffman is an accomplished entrepreneur and innovator in the fields of software, Internet, and entertainment. Having launched his first software company while still a student at Yale University, Hoffman has founded and grown a series of successful startup companies in his career, raising independent financing for his ventures and guiding his companies to both acquisitions and public offerings.
Jeff’s first startup was a software company in the travel industry named CTI, a company that quickly became the industry leader in technology for the travel and tourism industry, and was later acquired by American Express. For his achievements, Jeff was named one of the industry’s 25 Most Influential Executives. Hoffman’s was also a founder of early e-commerce pioneer Virtual Shopping, Inc., which developed patented, proprietary software and hardware for online retailing on the Internet, and was later acquired by Europe’s Wallenberg Group.
More recently, Jeff was a founder and CEO in the Priceline.com family of companies, where Jeff held two CEO titles and led the development and launch of Priceline’s consumer company. Hoffman also served as an executive and investor in Walker Digital, the parent company of Priceline and one of the country’s most innovative creators of intellectual property and new business models.
Today Jeff serves as Managing Partner of Smith-Hoffman Capital, a private equity firm investing in early and growth stage companies in a wide array of industries, including consumer products, health care, and technology. Jeff dedicates a significant portion of his time to mentoring other entrepreneurs. He currently serves as Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the Advanced Technology Development Center at Georgia Tech, as well as being a Coach and Mentor in the Kaufman Institute’s FastTrac Entrepreneur’s program. Jeff also serves on the executive and advisory boards of a number of other companies, including InteleHealth, PB Nation, Simcraft, and digital entertainment retailer BurnLounge, among others.
Outside his technology ventures, Hoffman is an independent film producer, having executive produced such successful independent films as CABIN FEVER, and has also produced concerts and music events including such recording artists as Elton John and Britney Spears. Hoffman was recently elected Chairman of the American Association of Adapted Sports Programs, which is a non-profit organization serving to bring sports and sports leagues to disabled children all across the country.
Jeff Hoffman is an accomplished professional and motivational speaker on business, marketing, and leadership in the new millennium, having spoken at conferences and corporations in over 40 countries around the globe.
Most Requested Topics:
Innovation and How to Inspire It: To many business leaders, innovation is a “soft” science, something that occurs frequently by accident, or when a good idea just “pops up”. But in reality, the world’s most creative companies consider innovation an actual process, as much a part of their operations as marketing or customer service. In this thought-provoking presentation, Jeff Hoffman teaches the audience how they can create and manage an innovation process in their own company, and how they can harvest the results of that process from idea to product to profitability. Managing Change in a Fast-Paced World: Five years ago, Tower Records was a leader in music distribution, and Apple Computer was a computer company. Today, Tower Records is bankrupt and Apple gets most of its profits from the music business via its iPod. What happened? Nothing, in Tower Record’s case, and that’s exactly the problem. Tower thought it was in the retail business, when it should have recognized that it was in the distribution business. In this stimulating presentation, Jeff Hoffman explains how to anticipate change and how to react to it so that you can be tomorrow’s leader and not yesterday’s news. The Art and Science of Branding: We live in a world where we are constantly bombarded by advertising and sales pitches, on our TV, on our radio, in the movie theater, via our email, and even on our cell phones. If you have a product or service to sell, how do you break through the noise and get your customer’s attention? Jeff Hoffman, a recognized expert in branding, was an executive in the Priceline.com family of companies, where Priceline became the second most recognized brand name on the Internet after less than two years of operation. In this presentation, Hoffman shares a very powerful list of key requirements in developing your own brand and finding your place in a crowded market. New Rules of Business Leadership: Jeff Hoffman, a successful entrepreneur who launched and grew a number of startup companies, has done business all over the world and has studied business and corporate culture in many different industries and geographies. In this clear and concise presentation, Hoffman shatters the myths of the old school of business management, and presents a valuable list of new rules for success in business today. Today’s workforce reacts to an entirely new set of needs and rewards, just as today’s customers have a totally different expectation of what you provide to them. Don’t miss this presentation if you want to get it right! Digital Distribution and How to Use It: It seems like new technologies and new opportunities make the news almost every single day. YouTube did not exist just a few short years ago, and then before some of us had ever even seen it, it was sold for $1.6 billion. Something’s going on here! What is it? It’s a complete redesign of the distribution system for many businesses and industries, and whatever field you are in, you need to be sure you are getting maximum benefit from the digital distribution system. In this eye-opening presentation, Internet pioneer Jeff Hoffman shows you how to do just that. Web 2.0 – What Does It Really Mean?: The “Internet bubble” or the “Internet craze”, depending on your perspective, was a wild ride that ended in a flaming wreck for many investors. Now there seems to be a lot of media buzz about the next wave, commonly called Web 2.0. What does this mean? What’s different? What should we expect from the new set of Internet companies and web technologies? Jeff Hoffman, an internet executive who has been deeply immersed in Internet technology development since the beginning, will answers those important questions. The Digital Entertainment Revolution: The entire traditional distribution system of the music, film, and television industries has been ripped apart and completely rewritten by technology and the Internet. Distribution has gone from “broadcast” to “narrowcast” to “personalcast”. We now “TIVO” a show and watch it when we want. We download single songs and don’t buy albums. The consumer has taken control of the entertainment distribution system, aided by digital distribution technologies, and this presents an exciting new world of business opportunities/ Jeff Hoffman walks us through these changes and tells us what the future may hold. |
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