UNews - Verious

Management alums establish Pereira Entrepreneurship Award

trevor.kenney — Wed, 19 Mar 2014 17:03:08 +0000

Faculty of Management alumni Anil Pereira (BMgt ’87) and Sheryl (Turnbull) Pereira (BMgt ’87) have established an endowment fund to support a new scholarship at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge – the Pereira Entrepreneurship Award.

This is the second scholarship fund that the Pereiras have established at their alma mater.

The $1,000 scholarship will be awarded annually and is aimed at high school applicants to the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge who have been admitted to the Faculty of Management and who have exhibited high academic achievement. The recipient of the scholarship will have been previously involved in entrepreneurial activities (such as Junior Achievement, Canadian Youth Business Foundation, 4-H or self-directed initiatives) with an aptitude to further those interests through their studies at the U of L.

“Sheri and I have very fond memories of our time at the U of L since that is where we met and where we set the foundation for our future careers,” says Anil Pereira, currently on campus in his role as the Faculty of Management’s inaugural Executive in Residence. “During the time I have spent on campus this year, it’s clear that there is tremendous interest from many students in establishing entrepreneurial careers. Having spent the past 15 years working on entrepreneurial ventures myself, this scholarship seemed like the perfect way for us to help ignite and support the entrepreneurial spirit among the next generation of Faculty of Management graduates.”

Pereira and U of L President and Vice-Chancellor, Dr. Mike Mahon, recently met with Dave Hancock, then Minister of Innovation and Advanced Education to speak about the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ's drive to enhance innovation and entrepreneurship on campus.

Anil Pereira is a well-known Silicon Valley entrepreneur and marketing executive with more than 20 years of hands-on experience at both start-up companies and global corporations. He is the founder and executive chairman of Verious and an advisor to a number of high-profile high technology startups. Earlier in his career he was an executive at leading companies including American Express and VeriSign. He graduated from the Faculty of Management in 1987 and was named the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ’s Alumnus of the Year in 2000. He is currently serving as the Faculty of Management’s inaugural Executive in Residence for 2013-2014. Anil also holds an MBA from the Wharton School of the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Pennsylvania.

“Entrepreneurship is about taking risks. It’s about creating a vision for a business from scratch. It’s about following your own path and inspiring those around you to work their hardest to make a small, growing business succeed,” says Pereira. “Sheri and I see a lot of those qualities in students at the U of L and hope that this award helps in some small way to attract even more entrepreneurially-minded students to the Faculty of Management.”

This is the second scholarship fund that the Pereiras have established at their alma mater. The first (Derrick and Lytta Pereira Management Prize) was put into place by Anil in 1987. The scholarship fund was later endowed by the Pereiras to fund an annual award for a deserving student in the Faculty of Management’s MSc program.

“Looking back, it seems a bit funny that I started a scholarship right after graduating from the U of L, when we ourselves didn’t really have much in terms of financial resources – and that ’s putting it mildly!” says Pereira. “However, both of us were recipients of scholarships while at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ and my parents were very supportive of my education. I felt an obligation from day one to pay some of that support back.”

With the establishment of the new Pereira Entrepreneurship Award, the Pereiras are seeking to inspire the entrepreneurial spirit of students in the Faculty of Management at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge for years to come.

Applicants for the Pereira Entrepreneurship Award are required to submit a 500-word essay that discusses their interest in entrepreneurship as well as the entrepreneurial activities they have been involved with or wish to undertake moving forward. Also required is a letter of recommendation from someone involved with the entrepreneurial activity.

Pereira to headline inaugural Edmonton Alumni & Friends Dinner

trevor.kenney — Wed, 05 Mar 2014 21:48:34 +0000

Silicon Valley entrepreneur and ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge alumnus Anil Pereira (BMgt ’87) will serve as the guest speaker for the inaugural 2014 ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge Edmonton Alumni & Friends Dinner on Wednesday, March 19 at the Fairmont Hotel Macdonald.

Anil Pereira is an entrepreneur and marketing executive with more than 20 years of hands-on experience at both start-up companies and global corporations.

Pereira is an entrepreneur and marketing executive with more than 20 years of hands-on experience at both start-up companies and global corporations. The founder and executive chairman of Verious, the world’s first code recommendation engine for software developers, Pereira is also the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge Faculty of Management’s first Executive in Residence.

“We’ve established this dinner as a means to bring alumni together in fellowship and to offer attendees compelling and engaging speakers who reflect the values and goals of the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge,” says President and Vice-Chancellor, Dr. Mike Mahon. “Anil epitomizes those attributes. Our 2000 U of L Alumnus of the Year, he is a dynamic, successful and influential entrepreneur who has made the most of his U of L education. That he aspires to serve as a role model for future generations of students is exemplary.”

Pereira is known as a tireless worker, serving as an advisor to numerous start-up and established businesses in Silicon Valley and around the world, among them a startup that teaches children how to code, a company that provides retailers with “intelligent CRM” and a cloud computing security company.

Pereira’s presentation at the Faculty of Management-sponsored Edmonton Alumni & Friends Dinner is the highlight of an extremely busy week. Pereira will spend time at each of the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ’s three campuses, giving a number of presentations to students and alumni and even participating in a student vs. staff/faculty ball hockey game.

“We occupy a unique place among Western Canadian business schools in that we ensure our students get a significant amount of in-class and beyond-the-classroom learning experiences,” Faculty of Management Dean, Dr. Bob Ellis, says. “We know that learning from successful leaders like Anil – who have also had the U of L experience – will help to motivate students as they navigate the complex and dynamic environment in which business operates.”

Individual tickets for the 2014 Edmonton Alumni & Friends Dinner are priced at $50 each, with a table of 10 for $500. Tickets are available online at ulethadvancement.universitytickets.com/dinner.

For more information on the Faculty of Management and its programs, visit www.ulethbridge.ca/management.

Pereira introduced as Management's first Executive in Residence

trevor.kenney — Mon, 21 Oct 2013 17:24:43 +0000

The ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge Faculty of Management is launching its Executive in Residence program by appointing international technology marketing expert Anil Pereira as its first on-site executive.

Anil Pereira is the inaugural Executive in Residence for the Faculty of Manegement. (photo by Eva Kolenko Photography)

“We are delighted that our inaugural Executive in Residence is Anil Pereira, a technology entrepreneur with an intense passion for building highly visible and trusted global brands,” says Dr. Bob Ellis, the U of L’s Dean of the Faculty of Management. “Of course, we are also thrilled that he is ‘one of our own’ and able to return to campus to share his insights with students and faculty alike.”

Pereira (BMgt ’87) is a well-known Silicon Valley entrepreneur and marketing executive with more than 20 years of hands-on experience at both start-up companies and global corporations. He is currently the founder and Executive Chairman of Verious, the world’s first code recommendation engine for software developers.

The company serves a booming market that industry analysts predict will be valued at more than $100 billion by 2015.

Pereira, who founded the company in 2011, works with a team of developers to aggregate programming libraries, open source code, tutorials, code samples and snippets and other content that helps app creators and other programmers speed up their time to market.

Verious received a significant award from technology news service TechCrunch as a “2011 Disrupt Award Finalist” in its first year of operation.

The purpose of the Executive in Residence program (funded by the Chartered Professional Accountants) is to create an opportunity for senior leaders in industry and government to visit the Faculty of Management to share the knowledge and insights gained from working in key industries with students, faculty and staff at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge and the communities it serves. The program has been designed to tie research-based teaching in the Faculty of Management with practical, real-world examples of business strategy and implementation from senior industry leaders.

Pereira, the 2000 U of L Alumnus of the Year, brings a host of real-world business expertise to campus.

There should be no shortage of ideas that Pereira, the 2000 U of L Alumnus of the Year, might bring with him during his visits to campus – all drawn from his own extensive library of current and previous business experiences.

“You can learn all you want from textbooks, and theory is certainly an important foundation in the world of business, but it’s always eye-opening to successfully apply theory in the workplace,” says Pereira. “My goal is to provide practical examples – to apply research and classroom teachings to businesses in today’s marketplace that are in the midst of rapid change and growth and facing various challenges. I want to help students apply theory to practice in real ways, and help them understand how to manage their own careers.”

Ellis says that the key benefit of Pereira’s visit to campus will be his time spent with students.

“We occupy a unique place among Western Canadian business schools in that we ensure our students get a significant amount of in-class and beyond-the-classroom learning experiences,” he says. “We know that learning from successful leaders like Anil – who have also had the U of L experience – will help to motivate students as they navigate the complex and dynamic environment in which business operates.”

In addition to his time at the helm of Verious, Pereira also serves as an advisor to numerous start-up and established businesses in Silicon Valley around the world, among them a startup that teaches children how to code, a company that provides retailers with “intelligent CRM”, and a cloud computing security company.

Pereira serves as the lead independent director for Fnbox (a holding company that operates leading online businesses in Latin America), and is a senior advisor to Innovation Norway and a number of fast-growing start-ups including Capillary Technologies, Conference Hound and Tynker.

Additionally, he has held senior positions at American Express and VeriSign, a leading Internet infrastructure company, and was the founder and CEO of DataSphere Technologies.

Initially, Pereira will be on campus for a week beginning November 4 to engage students through a series of guest lectures and mentoring sessions. This will set the stage for a return visit in the spring that will feature similar activities as well as public presentations in Lethbridge, Calgary and Edmonton.

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