Babson Celebrates Entrepreneurship at

Alumni Entrepreneur Hall of Fame Event

Matthew Coffin, Internet Entrepreneur, and Carlos Mattos, Founder, Hyundai Colombia Automotiz, S.A., Named to Alumni Entrepreneur Hall of Fame;

Carl Schramm, President/CEO, Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation,
Receives Honorary Degree

Babson College, the top–ranked college for the study of entrepreneurship, will celebrate entrepreneurial excellence at the 2009 Alumni Entrepreneur Hall of Fame Dinner on Friday, Oct. 16, 2009.
 
Internet entrepreneur Matthew R. Coffin, CEO, Coffin Enterprises and Founder, Former CEO, LowerMyBills.com; and Carlos J. Mattos, Founder and President, Hyundai Colombia Automotiz, S.A., will be named to the Babson Alumni Entrepreneur Hall of Fame. Mattos is a Member, Babson College Board of Overseers.

Babson will confer an honorary degree on a global leader in entrepreneurship - Dr. Carl J. Schramm, President and CEO, Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.

Matthew R. Coffin is an Internet entrepreneur and early-stage investor.  He was the CEO and founder of Lower MyBills.com, which was sold to Experian for $380 million.  In addition to LowerMyBills.com, he was president of Experian Online Customer Acquisition Services and the incubator-like Experian Interactive Innovation Center.  Coffin was an Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of Year award winner in 2007, and was Southern California Entrepreneur of the Year in 2006. Current investments include Rubicon Project, Demand Media, Mahalo, eBureau, InAdco, and Hautelook.

Carlos J. Mattos is founder and president of Hyundai Colombia Automotriz, S.A. (HCA), the exclusive distributor and importer of Hyundai Motor Company, Korea.  HCA ranks second on the local market in terms of sales behind the Colombian unit of General Motors.  In 1997, 1999, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2005 and 2006, Mattos received the award as the Best Hyundai Distributor in Latin America, and in 2008, was awarded as the Best Hyundai Distributor of the World.

Carl J. Schramm is president and chief executive officer of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.  Under his leadership, since 2002, the Kauffman Foundation has developed innovative programs that expose students to the power of entrepreneurship, open new pathways to effectively move university innovations into the marketplace, create better-qualified angel investors as a critical source of seed capital, and engage economists of the highest caliber to study the impact of entrepreneurship. In 2007, Schramm was appointed chairperson of the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Measuring Innovation in the 21st Century Economic Advisory Committee.  Schramm has been instrumental in partnering with the Department of Commerce to create an international entrepreneurship resource at www.entrepreneurship.gov , and also spearheaded the Foundation’s sponsorship of the first-ever Global Entrepreneurship Week, which he announced in 2007 with UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

The Alumni Entrepreneur Hall of Fame dinner is one of many festivities being held during Babson’s Family and Friends Weekend, Oct. 15-18.

Visit:  http://www3.babson.edu/familyandfriends/default.cfm  for a complete schedule of the Family and Friends Weekend events.