Professor Receives Award to Establish Workshop for Entrepreneurs

Desplaces

David Desplaces, associate professor of entrepreneurial studies, has received the Howard F. Rudd Distinguished Faculty Award for Service Leadership, which honors the legacy of Howard F. Rudd Jr., dean emeritus and retired professor of management.

Desplaces is using the $10,000 award – which is made possible by philanthropic gifts from Anita Zucker and Justin R. McLain ’98 – to establish a professional leadership course to help start-ups and growing businesses manage their internal relationships and discover their leadership styles and how people perceive them.

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“The workshop is designed to professionalize entrepreneurs who might not know how to manage – a problem faced by entrepreneurs everywhere,” says Desplaces. “My goal is to become a resource for our growing community of entrepreneurs.”

EXPERIENCE: Minor in entrepreneurship at the College of Charleston.

The workshop format has been templated, but Desplaces must be certified in the use of the Hogan Leadership Assessment model, which will be partially-funded through the award. Desplaces is designing a scenario-based experiential exercise focused on developing strategies for difficult situations – the exercise will be central to the workshop.

“Training as a Hogan Systems leadership coach and developing one-of-a-kind experiential exercise to deal with conflict are two of the most impactful outcomes of the funding to date,” says Desplaces. “The award has offered me the opportunity to further the legacy of service leadership so dear to Dr. Rudd by providing me with opportunities to renew my enthusiasm for the community, my teaching and research.”

In other words, the endowed award will continue Rudd’s legacy and impact future generations of entrepreneurs to come.