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Nov 15, 2017

Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise Director Greg Brown Honored at CNBC Disruptor 50 Event

Chapel Hill, N.C. (November 15, 2017) – Greg Brown, director of the Frank Hawkins Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise, was honored today as part of CNBC’s Disruptor 50 event at the Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center in San Francisco.

Brown served as a member of the 2017 CNBC Disruptor 50 Advisory Council, a group of 39 leading thinkers in the field of innovation and entrepreneurship charged with selecting the 50 companies appointed to this year’s list.

“There was a tremendous volume of exceptional nominees this year, which made the selection process a tough one,” said Brown. “But this year’s listmakers represent an outstanding group of companies that are driving innovation and changing our world for the better.”

This year’s list, which was released in May, can be found here. Brown was joined on the Advisory Council by UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School’s PNC Distinguished Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship Albert H. Segars, who also serves as faculty director of the Kenan Institute’s Center for Sustainable Enterprise.

Since 2013, the CNBC Disruptor 50 list has been showcasing private companies whose innovations are shifting the paradigm for a wide range of industries and market sectors. Whether in biotech and machine learning or transportation and retail, CNBC Disruptors are distinguished by their record of capitalizing on previously untapped marketplace niches to put them on a path to – or beyond – the billion-dollar mark. According to PitchBook data, this year’s selections have an implied aggregate market valuation of an estimated $239 billion.

CNBC reviewed information for a record 833 nominees, using quantitative metrics – such as the amount of capital raised – as well as qualitative factors like originality and scalability. The Advisory Council then ranked companies on their ability to disrupt established industries and public companies. The highest-ranked criteria – this year, scalability and user growth – received the greatest weighting in the final selection.

For more on the CNBC Disruptor 50, visit www.cnbc.com/cnbc-disruptors.

About the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise:

The Frank Hawkins Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise is a nonpartisan business policy think tank affiliated with the University of North Carolina Kenan-Flagler Business School.; Founded in 1985, the nonprofit institute facilitates collaboration between the private, public and nonprofit sectors to build a greater understanding of how entrepreneurship, economic development and global commerce can work for the public good. It leverages best-in-class research to develop market-based solutions to today”’s most complex economic challenges; in doing so, the Kenan Institute aims to better the lives of people in North Carolina, across the country and around the world. For more information, please visit kenaninstitute.unc.edu.

There was a tremendous volume of exceptional nominees this year, which made the selection process a tough one. But this year’s listmakers represent an outstanding group of companies that are driving innovation and changing our world for the better.

Greg Brown
Director, Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise

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