{"id":58096,"date":"2019-07-12T11:33:23","date_gmt":"2019-07-12T15:33:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsroom.carleton.ca\/?post_type=cu_story&p=58096"},"modified":"2025-10-20T09:30:45","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T13:30:45","slug":"tony-bailetti-mr-entrepreneurship","status":"publish","type":"cu_story","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/story\/tony-bailetti-mr-entrepreneurship\/","title":{"rendered":"Mr. Entrepreneurship"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n
\n\n \n \n \n \n
\n\n
<\/div>\n \n
\n
\n\n

\n Mr. Entrepreneurship\n <\/h1>\n \n <\/header>\n <\/div>\n\n \n <\/path>\n <\/path>\n <\/svg>\n <\/div>\n\n \n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n

Forty years ago, the morning after Canada Day in July 1979, a young professor arrived on the Carleton University campus for his first day of work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To get his bearings, he walked along the Rideau River to the canal, crossed the footbridge over Hartwells Locks and sat on a bench looking up at Dunton Tower.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then he went back to campus, took the elevator to the ninth floor of Dunton \u2014 at the time called the Arts Tower \u2014 and, after meeting a couple of colleagues in the School of Commerce, stepped into his office and surveyed the waterway and greenspace below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was enthralled by the beautiful view,\u201d recalls Prof. Tony Bailetti<\/a>, the director of Carleton\u2019s Technology Innovation Management<\/a> (TIM) program, who is cross appointed to the Sprott School of Business<\/a> and Faculty of Engineering and Design<\/a> and is widely regarded, both on and off campus, as the university\u2019s entrepreneurship guru.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Photo
Prof. Tony Bailetti (middle) with his sons Marco and Eduardo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCarleton was a very interesting place at the time. It was still fairly young as an institution, so everything was new exciting and we didn\u2019t know where things would go.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bailetti, who was born and raised in Peru and went to graduate school in the United States before moving to Canada, didn\u2019t expect to stay at Carleton forever. But he was willing to put his heart and soul into the university and see where it led.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ottawa and the Carleton community turned out to be a great place to raise a family, develop his career and help generations of students learn about business and entrepreneurship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Four decades after that propitious early-July morning, two of his sons are proud alumni \u2014 one of whom is teaching at Carleton this summer \u2014 and Bailetti remains passionate about inspiring people to make a difference in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\n

\u201cEverywhere I go, I meet former students of his who he has influenced over the years, whether it was two years ago or 20 years ago, and they all ask me to say \u2018hello and thank you\u2019 to my dad,\u201d says Eduardo Bailetti, who graduated with a Master of Entrepreneurship<\/a> from the TIM program in June and is now teaching an introduction to entrepreneurship course for Sprott as a contract instructor.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cHe\u2019s had an impact on so many people who created companies and careers. Everyone has a story and something kind to say about him. He did so much without asking for any recognition. I\u2019m proud to have my name recognized for his reputation, and I\u2019m excited to see what the future will bring.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

\"Photo<\/figure>\n\n\n

Continuing His Education Abroad<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tony Bailetti is from the small city of Huancayo in Peru\u2019s central highlands. His mother was a teacher and his father was an officer in the military.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He studied industrial engineering at the National University of Engineering in Lima, the capital, and after graduation got a job working for the Peruvian state-owned mining company \u2014 the industry had been nationalized \u2014 because they needed smart young people who spoke English.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s when I got interested in business,\u201d says Bailetti.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\n

\u201cIt was all about buying low and selling high. I had never heard of the London Stock Exchange. But I started to learn.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Two years later, in 1970, because the company encouraged its young employees to continue their education abroad, he applied for and was awarded a Fulbright scholarship<\/a> to study in the U.S. Bailetti went to the University of Cincinnati, where he earned an MBA and PhD in finance, a path he chose because he figured he knew everything about engineering already.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bailetti didn\u2019t plan to get a PhD. He and his wife Anne Marie had two young kids and bills to pay, but he was asked to teach a finance course and got a second job as an overnight security guard at a bank, which gave him time to prepare for classes and study after walking the rounds and checking locks on quiet shifts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI worked like a dog,\u201d he says, recalling the pre-computer, pre-PowerPoint era, when professors had to type and re-type notes and crank out copies of classroom handouts. \u201cBut it was rewarding, and I kind of had a knack for it. I realized that I wasn\u2019t teaching students. I was learning<\/em> with them. If you just teach, it doesn\u2019t resonate. If you\u2019re also learning, it really sticks with them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bailetti received more than a dozen job offers from throughout the U.S. after completing his PhD, but even though Anne Marie was from Cincinnati, her mother was Canadian, and the couple wanted to raise their family in Canada. So he accepted a faculty position at the University of Manitoba, and three years later, prompted in part by Winnipeg\u2019s winter weather, he took a chance on a new opportunity at Carleton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t know much about the university when I applied,\u201d says Bailetti, \u201cbut there seemed to be a good fit with what I wanted to do. I was in the finance area, which Carleton\u2019s wasn\u2019t doing much of at the time, so I saw the potential to build something. And it clicked.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

\"Photo<\/figure>\n\n\n

Connecting to the Community through Research<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Bailetti started at Carleton, the School of Commerce \u2014 the precursor of the School of Business that ultimately became Sprott \u2014 was part of the Faculty of Social Sciences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two years later, he became director of the commerce school. To help attract more students and keep pace with a changing world, he pushed, at a meeting with the chairs of units such as Economics, Political Science and Sociology, for a school with a wider mandate that did more research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the mid-1980s, Carleton had established its business school and started a graduate program, a master\u2019s degree in management studies, which Bailetti saw as a way for business professors \u201cto create stronger links with the community, with academics elsewhere in the university and with other researchers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1988, while on sabbatical, Bailetti took a temporary positon with Bell Northern Research, directing a half-engineering, half-business technology management unit for the company that would eventually be absorbed into Nortel Networks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He ended up staying with the company for six years, immersing himself in emerging communications technologies, such as email and local area networks, while continuing to teach one course at Carleton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Bailetti returned to the university full-time in the mid-1990s, the Faculty of Engineering and School of Business wanted to launch a new joint Telecommunication and Technology Management program.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\n

\u201cThey approached me about it when I came back, and I\u2019ve been working on it ever since,\u201d he says about the program that became today\u2019s TIM.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

At the time, high-speed internet and wireless and mobile communications were in their infancy, but Bailetti saw the potential for a program that taught students how to use technology-focused businesses to improve people\u2019s lives. He also saw the potential to build a bridge between two different faculties \u2014 the type of leap into the unknown that requires leadership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA leader has to be able to take the risks required to champion a vision of the future,\u201d he says. \u201cYou have to create a compelling image of what the future will be, and you have to know how to get from here to there. You\u2019re like a bus driver \u2014 you need to bring people along with you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou also need the ability to continually improve the organization you work for, and have to know how to instill leadership skills in others. The best leaders are the ones who enable others to lead as well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

\"Photo<\/figure>\n\n\n

One of the Best Business Incubators on the Continent<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bailetti\u2019s growing interest in the fusion of technology and entrepreneurship was the fuel for another new initiative at Carleton, the Lead To Win<\/a> (LTW) business accelerator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Born in 2002 amid a round of cutbacks and layoffs in the city\u2019s technology sector, LTW started as a bootcamp for technology workers who had great ideas but no business experience. Over the years, it evolved into an ecosystem that has supported hundreds of start-up companies that have generated tens of millions of dollars in revenue. In 2015, LTW was named one of the top 10 university-based business incubators<\/a> in North America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut the biggest accomplishment, I\u2019ve always claimed, has been the success of my students, hundreds of whom have started companies or carved out important careers,\u201d says Bailetti, who estimates that he has supervised more than 150 thesis projects through TIM and LTW. \u201cAny award pales in comparison to what they\u2019ve done.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\n

\u201cThe word \u2018entrepreneurship\u2019 was a revelation when I started at Carleton. Now it\u2019s normal to hear it. But back then, nobody knew what it was, and it\u2019s really about creating a better world. You see a problem and you go out and solve it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The Canada-India Centre<\/a>\u2019s Canada-India Acceleration Program<\/a> (CIAP) is just one example of how Bailetti has helped spread this vision of entrepreneurship at Carleton. CIAP, which supports female tech entrepreneurs from both countries, \u201cembodies everything that I think a university should be doing,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bailetti\u2019s belief in the importance of internationalization \u2014 and the importance of Carleton expanding its presence overseas \u2014 sent him to China for two weeks in early July, where he accompanied five student-entrepreneurs from TIM on a trip to explore market opportunities in a country that, like India, has a population approaching 1.4 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had the privilege to mentor and learn with so many students,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019m always happiest when I\u2019m working with students.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

\"Photo<\/figure>\n\n\n

The Brothers Bailetti <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eduardo Bailetti was one of those students over the past couple years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He took TIM classes taught by Tony \u2014 other instructors marked his work, to avoid any conflict of interest \u2014 and gained a new appreciation for his father.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt gave me a different perspective when I saw how much passion and preparation he put into his courses,\u201d says Eduardo, who is the youngest of Tony\u2019s four children, with siblings Marco (another Carleton alumnus), Katia (a University of Ottawa grad) and Sean (Algonquin College). \u201cI understood how much work is required to stay on top of content as a professor. I was watching him in his element. It was wonderful to be part of his professorial world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At TIM, Eduardo did research on \u201ctransnational entrepreneurship\u201d \u2014 essentially, how domestic start-up companies can expand to exist in more than one country \u2014 and helped create the GERS (Grow Early, Rapidly and Securely) Project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having started a couple of companies himself in the years between earning an economics degree at Carleton and enrolling at TIM, he knew firsthand what challenges real-world entrepreneurs face and was able to mesh those experiences with the theory and context provided by grad school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAfter one or two semesters, my whole perspective on business changed,\u201d says Eduardo.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\n

\u201cI went from feeling like I knew almost nothing to feeling like a ninja.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Eduardo and his brother Marco both began their relationships with Carleton as children, attending sports camps at the university over the summer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCarleton has been like a family to me,\u201d says Marco, a partner at Deloitte in Toronto who graduated from Carleton with a Mass Communications degree in 2000. \u201cI grew up at the university.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy degree has helped my career in a number of ways,\u201d he continues, thinking back to his undergraduate years. \u201cIt gave me a more critical eye for media strategies and how to communicate certain messages. And it helped me determine which messages and which technologies are relevant to which audiences, which is the key to this field.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\n

\u201cJust because a technology is available, it doesn\u2019t mean you need to use it,\u201d adds Marco, echoing an idea that resonates throughout TIM and LTW.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Marco and Eduardo both credit their father with teaching them so much, but not by lecturing his sons. Instead, like most great leaders, he teaches by example.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat we\u2019ve taken away from him is what we\u2019ve seen him do,\u201d says Marco. \u201cWe saw his dedication, his patience, his humility. As a kid, these lessons are not always obvious.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As an alumnus, Marco has visited to Carleton to talk to students about sales, marketing and business, giving back to the school that fostered his success and, like his father, putting students front and centre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey are the people he committed most of his time to,\u201d says Marco. \u201cWe saw the investment he made, without expecting anything in return, especially with students who came from outside this country. My father has a deep gratitude to Canada because of the opportunities it has given us. What Canada \u2014 and Carleton \u2014 have provided, beyond a means to pay the bills, has had a ripple effect on our family and on so many others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCarleton and my father are similar in many ways. They\u2019re both mavericks compared to other universities and other professors. They do their own thing and shape their own paths.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

\"Photo<\/figure>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Forty years ago, the morning after Canada Day in July 1979, a young professor arrived on the Carleton University campus for his first day of work. To get his bearings, he walked along the Rideau River to the canal, crossed the footbridge over Hartwells Locks and sat on a bench looking up at Dunton Tower. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":410,"featured_media":58106,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"cu_story_type":[19,1917],"cu_story_tag":[1922],"class_list":["post-58096","cu_story","type-cu_story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","cu_story_type-technology-innovation","cu_story_type-the-new-economy","cu_story_tag-sprott-school-of-business"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":"blueprint"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/58096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/cu_story"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/410"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/58096\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97702,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/58096\/revisions\/97702"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"cu_story_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_type?post=58096"},{"taxonomy":"cu_story_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_tag?post=58096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}