Newswise — Cyril Camus ’91, Chairman of Camus Cognac, a family business leader and entrepreneur, will be inducted into the Babson Alumni Entrepreneur Hall of Fame atCelebrating Achievements in Entrepreneurial Thought and Action® at Knight Auditorium on September 15, 2017.
The Babson Alumni Entrepreneur Hall of Fame celebrates Babson alumni who have distinguished themselves in entrepreneurial endeavors across all types of enterprises, and recognizes each for their accomplishments in creating economic and social value.
Five alumni entrepreneurs— Daniel Dalet ’03, Emily Levy ’16, Yousef Al-Humaidhi ’15, Maria del Mar Gomez ’16 and Leon Logothetis ’99—will also be recognized as ‘Rising Stars’ for their success in founding businesses within the past ten years, making an impact in the marketplace, and generating media attention.
The Alumni Entrepreneur Hall of Fame and Rising Star awards will be presented at Back to Babson on Friday evening September 15, 2017.
Register for the “Celebrating Achievements in Entrepreneurial Thought & Action®”
Alumni Entrepreneur Hall of Fame
Cyril Camus ‘91
Chairman, Camus Cognac
Cyril Camus is a family business entrepreneur who grew up in the Cognac region of France. After receiving his Baccalaureate in France, Camus traveled to the United States to continue his studies. He earned a Bachelor of Science from Babson College in 1991. While at Babson, Camus co-founded his first company with two classmates. He further internationalized his studies with exchange programs at ESSEC Business School in France and also at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing, China.
After finishing his studies, Camus joined his family business, House of Camus, in the Beijing office, as the company’s representative to the local China market distributor. At the age of 32, Camus became the CEO of the House of Camus, a provider of high-end cognac and distributor of wines and spirits, and became the fifth generation of the same family to run the company headquartered in Cognac, France.
Immediately upon his assuming leadership, numerous initiatives were launched to strategically grow the House of Camus and further expand its global reach. Formal and systematic processes were introduced to improve the quality of products, including significant investments in the vineyards, distilleries, aging and blending cellars, and bottling lines and packaging halls. Investments also were made in recruiting and training of teams in France, and in the newly created distribution subsidiaries in the U.S. and China as well as branch offices in Asia.
Awarded the prize for Best Performer in the French agri-food industry by Le Moniteur du Commerce International (MOCI) in 2012, and with its products being the most awarded at the IWSC (International Wines and Spirits Competition) during the past five years, today, Camus Cognac is distributed in more than 140 countries and the family business can proudly affirm its excellence, from the grapes to the glass.
Rising Star Honorees
Daniel Dalet ‘03
Co-founder, SoloCoco
After more than a decade in the financial industry, Daniel Dalet decided it was time for a career change. With his wife, Gaby, and cousin, Abel Gonzalez, he co-founded an agro-industrial production company in the Dominican Republic that combined old world production with cutting-edge technology to create a high-quality, one-of-a-kind virgin coconut oil product. Since its founding in 2015, SoloCoco has had a profound impact on the Dominican Republic economy. Fair trade certified, the family business of two generations exclusively hires single mothers to produce the handcrafted oil. For his leadership in creating social and economic value, Dalet was honored with Babson College’s Lewis Institute Changemaker Award in 2016.
Emily Levy ‘16
Co-founder, Mighty Well®
Emily Levy is a graduate of Babson College, Class of 2016, with concentrations in technology, entrepreneurship, and design, as well as being a CWEL Scholar. She grew up in her family’s surf shop, where she first started her love for consumer-packaged goods, and saw firsthand the power of a passionate community.
Levy started Mighty Well with her best friend, Maria del Mar Gomez ’16, and boyfriend, Yousef, after she was diagnosed with Lyme disease and saw how people started to treat her as a medical condition, and not the strong and confident woman that she strives to be. She also is a passionate public speaker about startups, personal branding, and helping organizations to understand the patient perspective.
Levy is a proud alumnus of the Babson Summer Venture Program, WINLab®: Boston, Draper University, and MassChallenge. Her mission in life is to turn sickness into strength.
Yousef Al-Humaidhi ‘15
Co-founder, Mighty Well
Yousef Al-Humaidhi is a graduate of Babson College, Class of 2015, with concentrations in finance and entrepreneurship. He grew up in Kuwait with entrepreneurship and family business all around him, and saw the process of building companies firsthand. Though he has been working in the investment field while working on Mighty Well, his true passion has and always will be the entrepreneurial process, from ideation to operation.
After seeing chronic illness take away the identity of friends and family members, he felt he had to do something. Though he was not a medical professional, he worked to understand patient needs and created the prototype of the PICCPerfect PICC line cover. From that one product, he saw the opportunity to create a brand that would help patients all over the world transcend their illnesses and feel like themselves once again.
Maria del Mar Gomez ‘16
Co-founder, Mighty Well
Maria del Mar Gomez is a Latina entrepreneur, a graduate of Babson College, Class of 2016, and Draper University, Class of 2017, with concentrations in technology, entrepreneurship, and design, as well as environmental sustainability. She worked as the Innovation Catalyst at Wentworth’s Institute of Technology, where she coached students go from ideation to product development.
After seeing family members and her closest friends struggle with chronic illness, she was inspired to venture in the entrepreneurial journey of starting Mighty Well. Now, she immerses herself in the healthcare community to discern their main pain points and needs of chronically ill patients and their support network. She is passionate about female empowerment and social entrepreneurship as avenues for driving social change.
Leon Logothetis
Founder, Leon Logothetis
Leon Logothetis is a global adventurer, motivational speaker, and philanthropist. It wasn’t always that way. He used to be a broker in the city of London, where he felt uninspired and chronically depressed. He gave it all up for a life on the road. This radical life change was inspired by the inspirational movie, “The Motorcycle Diaries.”
Logothetis has visited more than 90 countries and traveled to every continent.
His show, “The Kindness Diaries” is streaming on Netflix. His books, Amazing Adventures of a Nobody and The Kindness Diaries and Live, Love, Explore: Discover the Way of the Traveler a Roadmap to the Life You Were Meant to Live, published by Readers Digest, are in stores now.
About Babson College
Babson College is the educator, convener, and thought leader for Entrepreneurship of All Kinds®. The top-ranked college for entrepreneurship education, Babson is a dynamic living and learning laboratory where students, faculty, and staff work together to address the real-world problems of business and society. We prepare the entrepreneurial leaders our world needs most: those with strong functional knowledge and the skills and vision to navigate change, accommodate ambiguity, surmount complexity, motivate teams in a common purpose to make a difference in the world, and have an impact on organizations of all sizes and types. As we have for nearly a half-century, Babson continues to advance Entrepreneurial Thought & Action® as the most positive force on the planet for generating sustainable economic and social value.
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