Entrepreneurial Expansion: Taking a Venture to the Next Phase

CareerCast - Life-long Career Development

Greg Wall Do you dream of entrepreneurship, yet haven’t made the leap from your multinational organization? Perhaps you aren’t ready for a start-up but want to be in a fast-growing endeavor. In this CareerCast, Greg Wall, president and COO of New Buffalo (and Chicago Booth alumnus), shares his knowledge, insights, and wisdom about how he is applying his broad and deep functional and general management experiences from large corporations in an entrepreneurial venture poised for growth.

Aired August 20, 2010

Greg Wall’s career has emphasized the start-up, growth, and turnaround of corporate and entrepreneurial enterprises. His responsibilities and experiences have spanned North America, Asia, Europe, and Central America. As the president and COO of New Buffalo, a leading innovator in apparel printing, he is leading the company’s transformation from an entrepreneurial enterprise to a global corporation. Previously he served as managing director of Bobalew Ventures, whose focus is the development of successful service businesses in Western New York; as VP and division GM at Bacou-Dalloz, he led a turnaround initiative for the company’s Americas hand protection operations.

Forging partnerships with several privately held firms, at Greif he built a North American service and manufacturing division and spearheaded the alignment of related packaging operations globally, and at Sonoco he conceptualized a cutting-edge industrial packaging services business and built a greenfield operation that created that corporation’s first value-based services division.

Greg began his career in Bethlehem Steel’s Loop Management Program. He holds a BS in engineering from Pennsylvania State University and an MBA in strategy and marketing from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Greg lives in Williamsville, New York, with his wife, Dia, and their son Hayden. His children Sheri, Gregory, and Angelica reside in Newport News, Philadelphia, and Atlanta respectively. He is passionate about college football, conditioning, culinary arts, wine, and travel.

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Entrepreneur’s Toolkit: Tools and Techniques to Launch and Grow Your New Business by Richard Luecke (2005)