Startup Junkie will welcome Charles Morgan, the visionary former chairman and CEO of Acxiom Corporation, to Fayetteville on Tuesday, Sept. 24 to share his story of success with area entrepreneurs, business owners and students.
The event will begin at 6 p.m., with remarks from the entrepreneur-turned-author on his incredible journey to success.
“We’re honored to host Mr. Charles Morgan, and we look forward to hearing his story shared with a room full of eager business owners, founders and students,” said Caleb Talley, Startup Junkie director of marketing and events. “We have a lot to learn from one of Arkansas’ most successful entrepreneurs.”
Morgan, a 2004 inductee into the Arkansas Business Hall of Fame, has extensive experience managing and investing in private and public companies. As founder, chairman and CEO of Acxiom Corporation, the world leader in data gathering and its accompanying technology, he grew it from an early-stage company to an international corporation growing to $1.4 billion in annual revenue during his tenure as CEO from 1972 to 2008.
Morgan worked comprehensively in Acxiom’s European offices from 1987 through 2008, guiding the acquisition of numerous marketing services companies such as Claritas and Consodata, as well as spearheading the development activities of innovative software, data products and processing platforms across five countries in the region.
Now chairman and CEO of his latest tech venture, First Orion, Morgan reveals his post-retirement startup success story in a new book,Now What? The Biography of a (Finally) Successful Startup. The book tells Morgan’s unvarnished account of tech startup First Orion and his small team’s nine-year quest to successfully navigate the uncharted world of mobile phone technology. He’ll share that journey with and take questions from those in attendance on Sept. 24.
“Charles Morgan…demonstrates in vivid detail what’s required to be an effective entrepreneur today. Afraid that his young tech company was going down, Charles patched the holes and righted the ship, and with the help of a devoted team, he led—against astonishing odds—his new enterprise to success. You will be inspired, and you’ll have fun learning how he did it. And you will see just how the sausage is made,” economist and author Margaret Turner Taylor said of Morgan’s story.
Morgan was employed by IBM as a systems engineer for six years prior to joining Acxiom, and he holds a mechanical engineering degree from the University of Arkansas. In addition, he has served on the board and in various leadership roles with the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) throughout his career, including serving as chairman of the DMA in 2001.
His first book, Matters of Life and Data: The Remarkable Journey of a Big Data Visionary Whose Work Impacted Millions (Including You), was published by Morgan James Publishing in 2015 and was No. 1 on Amazon’s Kindle Store/Business & Money/Industries/Information Management. His work at First Orion has been highlighted in Time, USA Today, CNET, Washington Post, CBS News, Inc., Fortune, New York Post and The London Daily Mail.
Anyone interested in attending this free event should RSVP here.
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July 3, 2019
CONTACT: Caleb Talley
caleb@startupjunkie.org • 870-270-3988
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