CELEBRATING BUSINESSES AWARDS LUNCHEON

Description

Celebrate the success of our four winners and be inspired by their stories at a lunch event on April 25. Cost to attend is just $25 per person for members and guests.
 
Our guest speaker is Matt Varilek, the new President of the Initiative Foundation.

 
Wednesday, April 25, 2018
at The Links at Northfork
12:00 - 1:30 pm
$25.00 per person
 

About our speaker:
Matt Varilek is the president of the Initiative Foundation, a regional community foundation dedicated to strengthening communities in the 14 counties of Central Minnesota. 

Matt previously served as chief operating officer of the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), where he provided strategic direction while overseeing essential operational services such as human resources, information technology, grants management and enterprise risk management. In his prior role as SBA regional administrator, he managed delivery of the agency's business assistance programs across a six-state region. 

He served as economic development director and speechwriter for U.S. Senators Tim Johnson and Tom Daschle. He is a past U.S. House candidate. In the private sector, he analyzed energy and environmental commodity market dynamics as director of policy and research for Natsource LLC, an energy commodities brokerage. 

Matt has a master's degree in environment and development from the University of Cambridge, England, where he was funded by a Gates Cambridge Scholarship from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He has a master's degree in economic development from the University of Glasgow in Scotland, where he was funded by a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship from the Rotary Foundation. He holds a bachelor's degree in philosophy from Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota.

He is a native of Yankton, South Dakota, and a former resident of Marshall, Minnesota and lives near Rice, Minnesota in Benton County with his wife and three children.