The Innovate State Speaker Series brings both emerging and accomplished Spartans back to campus for a fireside chat-style interview. These 60-minute sessions offer the chance for guests to share their perspectives on a wide array of topics like innovation, startup life, investments, and career paths. These are stories of success, stories of failures, and stories of uncommon will—and you do not want to miss them. Innovate State kicks off at 6 p.m. ET and are free to the community. Events will be offered in a hybrid format, offering attendance options in-person & virtually. Early registration is highly encouraged.

About our Speaker

Chris Golec, Serial Software Entrepreneur, Advisor & Investor

After graduating from Michigan State University in 1987, Chris Golec went on to start multiple software companies in Silicon Valley valued at more than $2 billion. Most recently, he founded and led Demandbase as CEO, pioneering the Account Based Marketing category (“ABM”) over the past 15 years. This feat earned him Top CEO and Marketing Technology executive awards from multiple leading industry organizations. In 2016, Glassdoor named his company in their Top 10 Places to Work in the United States out of 500,000 companies. Today, Chris actively advises several software startups in the B2B sector and resides in the San Francisco Bay Area.