Innovate State: The Blueprint featuring Dan Gilbert

The Innovate State Speaker Series brings both emerging and accomplished Spartans back to campus for a fireside chat-style interview. These 60-minute sessions offer the chance for guests to share their perspectives on a wide array of topics like innovation, startup life, investments, and career paths. Students get the opportunity to hear firsthand about the hard knocks of the entrepreneurship & innovation hustle to maintaining work/life balance. These are stories of success, stories of failures, and stories of uncommon will—and you do not want to miss them.

This special edition of Innovate State kicks-off at 6 p.m. ET in N130 BCC (651 N. Shaw Ln., (651 N. Shaw Ln., N130 Business College Complex, East Lansing, MI 48824) and are free to the community. Events will be offered in-person only but are available virtually on the Friday following the event at eship.msu.edu/innovate-state/. Early registration is highly encouraged.

Dan Gilbert, Founder & Chairman, Rocket Companies

Dan Gilbert is the Founder and Chairman of Rocket Companies (NYSE: RKT), which includes Rocket Mortgage, the nation’s largest retail mortgage lender. He is also the majority owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers and serves as the Founder and Chairman of ROCK and real estate development firm Bedrock Detroit.

Through his “For More Than Profit” philosophy, the Rocket Community Fund and the Gilbert Family Foundation committed $500 million over 10 years to Detroit through investments in organizations and programming to support housing stability, educational attainment and economic mobility. Additionally, Gilbert and the Family of Companies have committed more than $1 billion to medical research and community initiatives around the country.

Gilbert moved his businesses to Detroit’s urban core in 2010. His investment in the revitalization of downtown led to the creation of Bedrock. Since its founding in 2011, Bedrock and its affiliates have invested and committed more than $7.5 billion to acquire, develop and operate more than 140 properties in Detroit and Cleveland.

Gilbert is an active investor in fintech, sports-related and consumer-direct companies. He founded Detroit Venture Partners (DVP) to fund startup and early-stage technology companies. In 2016, he co-founded Detroit-based StockX, the world’s first ‘stock market of things’, combining the visible, liquid, anonymous and transparent benefits of a stock market with the online consumer secondary market.

Gilbert is a fourth generation Detroiter and a graduate of Michigan State University. He obtained his Juris Doctor from Wayne State University in Detroit.

📍 BCC N130 (651 N. Shaw Ln., N130 Business College Complex, East Lansing, MI 48824)

If you'd like to be considered to ask Dan a question, please respond to the prompt titled 'Would You Like to Ask a Question to Dan?' and include your question when registering.

For further questions, contact Annie Gillespie, [email protected]

Host or Publisher Burgess Institute